Kathy L. Powers

Regional Trade Agreements as Military Alliances

Some alliances lead to militarized interstate conflict while others lead to peace (Gibler 2000). Liberal scholars argue that trade institutions minimize such hostilities. Trade institutions, however, can also be military alliances. Alliance commitments embedded in the treaties of regional trade agreements (RTAs) are an emerging phenomenon in international politics. Similar to Gibler’s (2000) territorial settlement treaties, RTA military alliances serve conflict management functions. Their purpose is to prevent RTA members, who are trading enemies, from attacking each other or supporting coups against other members’ governments. These commitments are supposed to send signals to deter external aggression. Since RTA military alliances are a little known fact in the study of international relations, their theoretical and policy implications are not well understood. Analysis of RTA military alliances will help shed light on when alliances lead to war and peace as well as have little influence at all. The purpose of this study is (1) to demonstrate that RTAs can be military alliances through alliance commitments stipulated in RTA treaties and (2) to provide an empirical test of RTA military alliance influence on the likelihood of militarized conflict involving dyad members. Findings suggest that RTAs with alliance commitments exist. Second, traditional allies are more likely to experience political hostilities than other states while RTA military allies are less likely. Neither relationship is statistically significant. When country pairs share membership in a traditional alliance and a RTA military alliance, the interaction enhances the conflict encourag-

Dispute Initiation and Alliance Obligations in Regional Economic Institutions

States increasingly incorporate alliance obligations into the design of multilateral trade agreements to deter aggression. Regional economic institutions (REIs) are such an example. This policy activity raises the question of whether REI military alliance obligations send signals and function as institutional constraints that deter aggression. Hypotheses regarding the influence of (1) shared REI military alliance obligations on dispute initiation and (2) REI military alliance obligations on whether a potential challenger will initiate a militarized dispute against a potential target are tested. African REIs, states, and their dispute initiations from 1950 to 2000 compose the sample. Logit analysis of time-series, cross-section data is the method employed. African REI military alliances are an example of African international relations’ exceptionalism and innovation in institutional design. Findings suggest African REI military alliance obligations reduce the propensity for aggression between member-states and reduce the likelihood that a potential challenger will attack a potential target and a potential target will be the object of attack. The evidence in this article indicates that such commitments reduce dispute initiation among African states.

The economic-institutional construction of regions: conceptualisation and operationalisation

The international relations literature on regionalism, both in economic and security issues, has grown dramatically over the last 15 years. One of the ongoing issues discussed in most articles and books is the conceptualisation of ‘region’. Instead of thinking about regions using notions of interdependence and interaction we take a social constructivist approach, whereby states themselves define regions via the construction of regional economic institutions (REI). We explore how a conceptualisation of region based on REIs contrasts with various related concepts such as regional system, and regional IGO. Empirically, we show that most all countries belong to at least one important regional economic institution, REI, (for example, EU, Mercosur, ASEAN, etc). In short, the world is dividing itself into regions by the creation of regional economic institutions. We contrast our economic-institutional approach to regions with Buzan and Waevers ‘regional security complexes’ which is based on security dependence. There are interesting agreements and disagreements between their approach and our economic-institutional approach to defining regions. It is perhaps not surprising that many REIs have taken on security roles, which we briefly show by looking at military alliances embedded in REIs. This suggests that policymakers are creating regions through institutional innovations that link economic and security issues.

The Demand for Reparations

In analyzing peace processes in postconflict societies, scholars have primarily focused on the impact of prosecutions, truth-telling efforts, and reconciliation strategies, while overlooking the importance of individual demands for reparations. The authors argue that normative explanations of why reparations are granted in the aftermath of regime change are useful in understanding a need for reconciliation, but inadequate for explaining victim demands for compensation. The authors extend this research to study civil war settlement. In the aftermath of civil war, when some form of reparation is offered giving individuals the opportunity to seek redress of grievances, what types of loss and political and socioeconomic characteristics are likely to lead some individuals to apply for reparations but not others? Using primary data, collected through a public opinion survey in Nepal, the authors investigate individual-level demand for reparations. The findings suggest that understanding loss and risk factors may be important to civil war settlement and reconciliation.