11:00 - 13:15
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Hyeran Jo
Discussant/s:
Vojtech Bahensky
Meeting Room C

Hyeran Jo
Intended and Unintended Consequences of International Interventions: Patterns of Militant Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Patterns of Militant Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Yuleng Zeng
Microchips and Sneakers: Bilateral Trade, Shifting Power, and Interstate Conflict

Katharina Pfaff, Birgit Meyer
Re-assessing the link between multinational corporations and conflicts: evidence from geo-referenced data

Anna Getmansky
War from afar: military automation and conflict

Christian Oswald, Daniel Ohrenhofer
Click, click boom: Using Wikipedia metadata to predict changes in battle-related deaths
Microchips and Sneakers: Bilateral Trade, Shifting Power, and Interstate Conflict
Yuleng Zeng
University of Salzburg

Strong commercial ties promote peace as states shun the opportunity costs of economic disruption. However, trade also enriches and empowers states, rendering them more capable of enforcing long-term settlements. Given economic disruption does not last forever, countries can be incentivized to trade short-term economic losses for long-term political or territorial gains. This trade-off can restrict or even reverse the pacifying effect of commerce as it renders states incapable of committing to existing peaceful deals. I argue the scope condition hinges on the security externalities of trade, defined as states' (latent) abilities to translate trade gains into military power. When a country's trade externality relative to her opponent's is at the extremes, more bilateral trade can be peace-promoting. However, when the relative externality is in a mid-range, increasing bilateral trade can exacerbate commitment problems leading to a higher likelihood of costly conflict. I test the implications on a sample of countries comprising strategic rivals and major powers, finding supporting results.