All’s Well That Ends Well: A Reply to Oneal, Barbieri & Peters
| Date | 01 November 2003 |
| Author | Erik Gartzke,Quan Li |
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433030406008 |
| Published date | 01 November 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
727
Oneal (2003) and Barbieri & Peters (2003)
offer contrasting replies to our article on
measuring interdependence in the Septem-
ber issue of this journal. Oneal (2003) agrees
with the main arguments of Gartzke & Li
(2003a), but disagrees with some impli-
cations. The response from Barbieri & Peters
(2003) is more broadly critical, taking issue
with almost all of the findings by Gartzke &
Li (2003a), except that trade openness
promotes peace. Given limited space, we
focus on responding to the major points of
each critique. We also offer quantitative
evidence reconfirming our earlier claims.
Oneal (2003) agrees with Gartzke & Li
(2003a) on several major issues. First, the
study clarifies the mathematical relationships
linking trade dependence, openness, and trade
share. Second, trade dependence (the lower
bilateral trade-to-GDP ratio in each dyad)
and openness (the total trade-to-GDP ratio for
the same state) negatively affect the likelihood
of MID onset. Third, trade share (the lower
ratio of bilateral to total trade in a dyad) is not
a good measure of economic interdepen-
dence. However, Oneal (2003) rejects the
explanation in Gartzke & Li (2003a) for why
the bilateral trade-to-GDP measure may be
less robust in dyadic studies of militarized
disputes than is the measure of economic
openness. He criticizes us for considering only
the statistical significance of the two measures
of interdependence, rather than their substan-
tive effects on the probability of conflict.
We disagree with Oneal (2003) in three
respects. First, in his reply, Oneal (2003) does
not challenge the basic logic of our explanation
for why dependence on conflict is not always
robust in empirical analyses. Recall from
Gartzke & Li (2003a) that trade dependence is
© 2003 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 40, no. 6, 2003, pp. 727–732
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
[0022-3433(200311)40:6; 727–732; 038292]
All’s Well That Ends Well: A Reply to Oneal,
Barbieri & Peters*
ERIK GARTZKE
Department of Political Science, Columbia University
QUAN LI
Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University
Oneal and Barbieri & Peters offer divergent critiques of Gartzke & Li, who present a mathematical
identity between competing operationalizations of dyadic interdependence, and show that the relation-
ship one finds between conflict and commerce depends on how one constructs one’s dyadic indicator
of trade. Oneal seems to accept the identity, but not some of its implications. Barbieri & Peters chal-
lenge the identity and offer contrasting results. Here, we show that Barbieri & Peters’s results are due
to their model specification, which Gartzke & Li argue involves omitted variable bias.
* Equal authorship implied. Erik Gartzke’s e-mail address
is gartzke@columbia.edu. Quan Li’s e-mail address is
qxl4@psu.edu. We thank Katherine Barbieri for help with
data and Han Dorussen for comments and suggestions.
68S 08gartzke (ds) 3/10/03 1:23 pm Page 727
To continue reading
Request your trial