Does the WTO exacerbate international conflict?
| Author | Haeyong Lim,J Tyson Chatagnier |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320960203 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Does the WTO exacerbate
international conflict?
J Tyson Chatagnier
Department of Political Science, University of Houston
Haeyong Lim
Korea Institute for National Unification
Abstract
As one component of its mission to reduce trade barriers and encourage the liberalization of international commerce,
the World Trade Organization provides states with a forum in which they can raise and resolve complaints about
partners’ unfair trading practices. This mechanism streamlines the process of identifying non-compliant behavior,
and provides real incentives for the removal of such policies. By furnishing a form of dispute resolution, the
institution should be both trade-inducing and peace-enhancing for member states. However, this very mechanism
also has the potential to aggravate existing dispute for two reasons. First, it removes the opportunity for states to use
economic policies as instruments of structural linkage in resolving disputes. Second, it deprives its members of
powerful economic tools that could be used in lieu of militarized responses. Using the implementation of the WTO
Dispute Settlement mechanism, as well as the subsequent expiration of Article 13 of the WTO Agreement on
Agriculture (the so-called ‘peace clause’), we examine whether the opportunity to resolve trade disputes through the
organization affects the likelihood that member states engage in militarized conflict with one another. We find that
membership in a trade institution facilitates peaceful interaction, but that judicialization erases these benefits. We
conclude that institution building requires caution and attention to the possibility of unintended consequences.
Keywords
conflict, economic statecraft, institutions, issue linkage, trade
In sketching his idea for perpetual international peace,
Immanuel Kant argued that both institutions (a ‘federa-
tion of free states’) and economic interdependence
(‘[c]osmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of
universal hospitality’) were key conditions for the ulti-
mate cessation of global conflict (Kant, 2003 [1795]:
12–18). At first glance, this is unsurprising. Institutions
provide fora for discussion and redress of grievances,
means for states to coordinate, and rules that govern their
interactions. Trade introduces opportunity costs for
fighting, and provides a means for states to signal resolve.
Recent empirical work has investigated the role played by
both factors, finding overwhelming evidence that both
institutions (Russett, Oneal & Davis, 1998; Dorussen &
Ward, 2008; Shannon, Morey & Boehmke, 2010) and
trade (Polachek, 1980; Oneal & Russett, 1997; Gartzke,
Li & Boehmer, 2003; Polachek & Xiang, 2010; Peter-
son, 2013) tend to reduce interstate conflict.
At the same time, institutions restrict the set of for-
eign policy tools available to states, providing them with
a set of behaviors considered acceptable. This inherently
limits the options available to aggrieved parties. What
might otherwise have been a measured response to
wrongdoing is now prohibited by agreement. States are
then forced to find other tools to deal with bad behavior.
Moreover,issuelinkage–atacticusedtoresolve
otherwise-intractable conflicts (see Wiegand, 2009;
Poast, 2012) – can be rendered useless when institutions
Corresponding author:
jtchatagnier@uh.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(5) 1068–1082
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0022343320960203
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
To continue reading
Request your trial