Thursday, September 8, 2005

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The commercial peace?

The Cato Institute has come out with their 9th annual Economic Freedom of the World report. According to Cato's press release, this edition has one particularly intriguing finding:

Economic freedom is almost 50 times more effective than democracy in restraining nations from going to war. In new research published in this year’s report, Erik Gartzke, a political scientist from Columbia University, compares the impact of economic freedom on peace to that of democracy. When measures of both economic freedom and democracy are included in a statistical study, economic freedom is about 50 times more effective than democracy in diminishing violent conflict. The impact of economic freedom on whether states fight or have a military dispute is highly significant while democracy is not a statistically significant predictor of conflict. (emphasis added)

I know Erik, and I know that Erik knows a lot about the causes of war, so this tidbit definitely piqued my interest.

You can read Gartzke's paper by clicking here. His policy conclusions are provocative. For example:

The results here suggest that efforts to promote peace in the Middle East and in other regions dominated by autocratic governments through democratization are of particularly questionable worth. Whether Iraq, for example, can achieve stable democracy remains to be seen; but even success in such ventures appears unlikely to yield a meaningful reduction in interstate conflict unless it is paired with substantial and successful economic reform. Given finite resources, the attentions of developed nations are best directed upon reinforcing and propagating the free-market principles and practices that lead to peace over much of the northern hemisphere. The United States in particular has used its status as hegemon to champion capitalism and to encourage economic development. This effort should not be allowed to falter now that terrorism and the end of the Cold War have shifted US focus from containment of the Soviet Union to a more pro-active international policy. Democracy should be encouraged but the evidence suggests that democracy alone will not yield peace, while popular rule appears unstable in the absence of some degree of prosperity. In short, to achieve the goals of peace and freedom, the developed countries of the world cannot afford not to sponsor the extension of capitalist institutions and practices.

I'd really like for Gartzke's theoretical conclusions to be true, and he makes a persuasive case in the paper. I have three small cavils, however:

1) What, exactly, makes governments decide to increase economic freedom in their own countries? One possibility is that democracies are more likely to do this than non-democracies. For example, Helen Milner and Keiko Kubota argue in "Why the Rush to Free Trade? Democracy and Trade Policy in the Developing Countries" that:

Rising international trade flows are a primary component of globalization. The liberalization of trade policy in many developing countries has helped foster the growth of these flows. Concurrent with this rush to free trade, there has been a global movement toward democracy. We argue that these two trends are related: democratization of the political system reduces the ability of governments to use trade barriers as a strategy for building political support.... We provide empirical evidence to support our claim through econometric analysis of the developing countries from 1970-1999. Democracy seems to be associated for these countries with trade liberalization. Globalization may be fostered by democratization.

In other words, it's possible that the best way for countries to promote economic freedom is to promote political freedom as the antecedent.

2) That said, the other thing that worries me about Gartzke's finding is that trade openness is not significant in any of the regression results (though, as the appendix makes clear, trade metrics are included in the economic freedom score, so this could just be multicollinearity at work). Again, it could be that trade openness leads to more economic freedom across the board, which then leads to less violent behavior. But if that's not the case, it's profoundly disturbing, since besides democracy promotion, trade diplomacy is the primary engine through which the United States promotes economic freedom in the rest of the world.

3) One last musing -- the economic freedom score is a composite of a series of measures, including rule of law (which is correlated with democratic regimes) low inflation (which is correlated with economic development) and low tariffs (which is correlated with economic openness). How much of the empirical results are driven by multicollinearity between the explanatory variable and the the control variables?

Again, I still think Gartzke is onto something. Plus, I can't pass up mentioning Gartzke's observations about offshore outsourcing:

To avoid development creating a tinderbox of the southern hemisphere, it is necessary that increasing prosperity coincide with a relative decline in the value for territory and with growing dependence on global capital. The advantage of late-industrializing countries is that they may skip the most dangerous stages of industrialization. Early industrialization creates the need for natural resources and the where-with-all to acquire them through force. Labor costs are low, allowing the staffing of occupying armies. More important, valuable assets and resources remain “lootable” through conquest. Knowledge industries call for heavy investments of capital and human ingenuity but little that can be ransacked by an invader. The “outsourcing” of services, telemarketing, and software industries, while vexing to many in the developed world, helps to create economies in the developing world that are less inclined toward war. The Indo-Pakistani conflict has regularly erupted in warfare but leaders in both countries have recently come to accept that their more open economies suffer greatly from active hostilities. The growing dependence on international capital and the declining value of disputed territory relative to technological innovation means that the impetus to make peace has increased and the value of war has declined.

Check out Cato's web page on economic freedom for more (here's a link to the executive summary)

posted by Dan on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM




Comments:

wow, here is a shocker! the Cato Institute publishes a report that promotes a libertarian view.

I wonder whether the author noticed the fact that the USA has a very free economy but yet it is always attacking some defenseless country somewhere around the globe? or, well, i guess if you count up all the wars that we have instigated based on natural resources (being highly centralized in nature) and added those to all the cold war planned economies that we have overthrown and left to fight their own civil wars, it probably makes the example of the USA being a free economy but always being at war something of a statistical anomaly.

and maybe what this really shows is that "democracy" is not all that democratic after all, and therefore not a very good benchmark....

posted by: ahmed on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Democratic Peace Theory states that democracies do not ever go to war against other democracies. Which none ever has--including the US. The examples people try to use for exceptions are ridiculous, like the ludicrous notion that Nicragua was a democracy before the US backed the contras.

Gartzke's conclusions on the surface are simply off-base--democracies don't make war on each other, period. Of course you have to define democracy, but if you just for example use Freedom House's definitions, you find that no free or partly-free nation has ever gone to war with another--ever. As in ever, ever. Statistically it is impossible to dismiss that as mere chance.

It *is* true that democracies are fairly unstable when they have an average GDP of under about $6500 per person, although so are autocracies. Indeed, it's been shown rather definitively that autocracies with enough average income stay stable. So it appears that free market economies tend to lend stability. Rudy Rummel--foremost expert on DPT--examines that issue in some depth right here.

I'll drop him a note about this new paper. My guess? Autocracies which are wealthy free market economies might indeed prove not to go to war very often. Then again, I expect you'll find they routinely slaughter their citizens, torture people, repress free speech and free press, and clamp down on numerous other everyday freedoms as well.

posted by: Dean Esmay on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Whoops, sorry, that was the wrong link. Try this one.

posted by: Dean Esmay on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



If you look at how European (and American) democracies developed, I would say that economic development is probably more important as a cause of democracy than democracy as a cause of econ development. Also, you have a lot of Latin American democracies that have not attained a real level of econ development. Perhaps they need more time. However, I would suggest that it's the rising expectations of a consumer class that leads to political reform and a "gradual" transition to democracy.

Examples of my suggestion might include Japan and Korea. And then there's N Ireland. Have you heard about any IRA bombings lately? Since Ireland's economy has taken off, 400 years of sectarian violence has pretty much vanished.

Of course, the real test will be China. They're going with economic development in an autocratic system.

posted by: klaus on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Can someone explain what the constrains on economic freedom were in Prussia prior to the Franco Prussian war or in Germany prior to WWI?

posted by: Michael Carroll on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Oh, I see, tariffs.

Low Tariffs = No War. That's clever.

posted by: Michael Carroll on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



I am not sure that the Milner and Kubota findings provide a solid reason to question this study. Professor Geoffrey Garrett at UCLA has produced research to indicate that democracy often does not act in ways that support economic liberalization. His particular findings deal with the lack of welfare state retrenchment in democracies, explaining it in saying that voters more or less don't want to give up those policies that benefit them. I dont see why it would be any different in developing countries, where voters are (1) less informed about the benefits of trade liberalization and (2) likely to be more dependent on tariffs and other trade barriers. If voters in the US and EU still favor tariffs in many cases, why would voters in countries that are completely dependent on protectionist policies act any differently? I'd posit that they are *more* likely to vote for politicians who support protectionist measures.

posted by: Justin Berkowitz on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]




Democratic Peace Theory states that democracies do not ever go to war against other democracies. Which none ever has--including the US..

Wrong. The US vs. Britain in the War of 1812. India vs. Pakistan in 1999. Russia vs. Chechnya (although a good argument can be made that neither was completely democratic). Also, the UK and France fought a number of wars by proxy in Africa in the late 1800s, which only stopped because they realized that they had a greater enemy in Germany.

Also, Britain maintained colonial rule over several countries that became democracies after Britain left: India, Israel, Ireland, possibly Singapore etc. So much for the idea that democracies may not suppress other democracies through military force.

posted by: erg on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



What, exactly, makes governments decide to increase economic freedom in their own countries? One possibility is that democracies are more likely to do this than non-democracies.

A quick look at the economic policies of many third-world democracies, from Venezuela to Brazil to South Africa to India (and maybe soon Mexico as well), brings that proposition into question.

posted by: Eric on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



You all make great points but in the end pooh is still pooh.

posted by: Dick Sharp on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



I'm confused. What does any of this have to do with Natalie Holloway?

posted by: herostratus on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



The economic freedom data is from 1970-1995. This is mostly the Cold War during which trade policies and ideologies were pretty parallel. Greece and Turkey came to the edge a few times during Cold War and backed off not because they did not fear the financial markets, but because they feared the US. Most studies on Democratic Peace, on the other hand, use the COW dataset that goes back to 1812. Therefore I think Democr Peace finding is much more robust.

posted by: Kerim Can on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Wrong. The US vs. Britain in the War of 1812. India vs. Pakistan in 1999. Russia vs. Chechnya (although a good argument can be made that neither was completely democratic). Also, the UK and France fought a number of wars by proxy in Africa in the late 1800s, which only stopped because they realized that they had a greater enemy in Germany.

And, of course, inter-democratic warfare was all the rage with the kids back in ancient Hellas.

posted by: Bistroist on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Very interesting post. FYI, on a related note, a recent paper by Michael Hiscox and Scott Kastner finds that democracies that are open to trade and do not provide "substantial" social insurance are more prone to revert to non-democracies than democracies that are closed to trade or that maintain high levels of social insurance.

See the paper at
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hiscox/HiscoxKastnerISA.pdf

posted by: Sarah on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



Very interesting post. FYI, on a related note, a recent paper by Michael Hiscox and Scott Kastner finds that democracies that are open to trade and do not provide "substantial" social insurance are more prone to revert to non-democracies than democracies that are closed to trade or that maintain high levels of social insurance.

See the paper at
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hiscox/HiscoxKastnerISA.pdf

posted by: Sarah on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]



About trade I believe that somehow, there are many other things to consider. I already have discussed that on my blog http://badbot.blogspot.com, feel free to visit it and comment.

posted by: Popeye on 09.08.05 at 09:31 PM [permalink]






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