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Theories of international political influences on trade maintain that shared alliance commitments affect bilateral commercial exchange. The most prominent of these suggests that trade produces a security externality threatening states, but that a military alliance alleviates these concerns, leading to greater trade among allies. Yet past empirical analyses produce inconsistent findings with respect to the effect of military alliances on bilateral trade levels. This article presents a new argument to explain the inconclusive findings in previous studies. The potential increase in military power from efficiency gains through trade is a positive security externality only when a commitment to defend one's alliance partner exists. In essence, cooperative security agreements that require states to give military assistance to each other if attacked (i.e. defense pacts) will lead to greater trade among their members than agreements in which the members promise neutrality, non-aggression, or consultation. The analysis distinguishes alliances that include commitments of defense from those that do not, and uses two different sources of alliance data to examine the effects of defense pacts on trade levels between major powers from 1885 to 1990. The results demonstrate that defense pacts are associated with higher trade among alliance members, but that trade between members of non-defense pacts is statistically indistinguishable from trade between non-allies. This article recognizes that a link between economic and security issues exists and emphasizes their mutual relationship.

The authors appraise a well-known argument connecting economics and security in international relations: military allies are likely to trade more with one another than non-allies. A review of alliance treaties and diplomatic history suggests that, under certain conditions, states may tie together alliance agreements and economic agreements. When states explicitly link alliance agreements with economic cooperation, one would expect to see increased economic exchange coinciding with coordinated security policies. This article evaluates whether the linking of economic and security agreements accounts for a positive relationship between alliances and trade among European states before World War II and produces evidence in support of this argument. Trade among allies who have specified economic cooperation in their alliance agreements is higher than trade among non-allied states and higher than trade among allies who have not promised economic cooperation. In contrast, trade among allies without specific economic provisions in their treaties is statistically no different from trade among non-allies. Thus, the positive empirical relationship between alliances and trade that the authors find in pre-WWII Europe is a result of only a specific subset of all military alliances, namely, those treaties that stipulate economic cooperation between the allies. This study advances our understanding of the alliance–trade relationship by focusing attention on the joint negotiation of cooperation in different issue-areas.

AbstractScholars of international relations disagree whether trade in natural gas between Europe and Russia provides the latter with a source of foreign policy power. Because a reduction in trade of natural gas is costly for importers, the potential economic power of Russia's energy weapon could alter strategic calculations about diplomatic conflict with Russia. Consequently, we hypothesize that increases in dependence on Russian natural gas will lead to more foreign policy convergence with Russia. Using a panel of European states from 1995 to 2013 and a time series of Germany from 1979 to 2013, we find support for our argument that greater dependence on Russian natural gas correlates with more similarity in voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly. Our research suggests that Russian natural gas imports to Europe shape broader political alignments, adding to the growing body of research on the potential ramifications of Russia's energy weapon.

Scholars of international relations disagree whether trade in natural gas between Europe and Russia provides the latter with a source of foreign policy power. Because a reduction in trade of natural gas is costly for importers, the potential economic power of Russia's energy weapon could alter strategic calculations about diplomatic conflict with Russia. Consequently, we hypothesize that increases in dependence on Russian natural gas will lead to more foreign policy convergence with Russia. Using a panel of European states from 1995 to 2013 and a time series of Germany from 1979 to 2013, we find support for our argument that greater dependence on Russian natural gas correlates with more similarity in voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly. Our research suggests that Russian natural gas imports to Europe shape broader political alignments, adding to the growing body of research on the potential ramifications of Russia's energy weapon.

Previously reported empirical evidence suggests that when conflict arises, military alliances are not reliable; state leaders should only expect their alliance partners to join them in war about 25% of the time. Yet, theoretical arguments explaining the choices of leaders to form cooperative agreements are at odds with such empirical evidence. This puzzling gap between theory and evidence motivates a reconsideration of previous measures of alliance reliability. Many alliance treaties include specific language regarding the circumstances under which the alliance comes into effect, often limiting obligations to disputes with specific target states or in specific geographic areas, and many treaties do not go so far as to require states to join in active fighting. Considering the specific obligations included in alliance agreements provides an improved estimate of the propensity of states to honor their commitments. Results show that alliances are reliable 74.5% of the time.