IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qsh/wpaper/268986.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Autocracies and the International Sources of Cooperation

Author

Listed:
  • Soumyajit Mazumder

Abstract

Under what conditions do autocracies peacefully settle disputes? This study argues that as autocracies become more central in the network of liberal institutions such as Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), they are less likely to initiate a Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID). As a state becomes more democratic, the effect of centrality within the PTA network on the peaceful dispute settlement dissipates. This is because greater embeddedness in the PTA regime is associated with enhanced transparency for autocracies, which allows autocracies to mitigate \emph{ex ante} informational problems in dispute resolution. Using a dataset of MID initiation from 1965-1999, this study finds robust empirical support for the aforementioned hypothesis. Moreover, the results are substantively significant as well. Further analysis into the causal mechanisms at work provides evidence in favor of the information mechanism. The results suggest that an autocrat's structural position within the international system can help to peacefully settle its disputes.

Suggested Citation

  • Soumyajit Mazumder, 2015. "Autocracies and the International Sources of Cooperation," Working Paper 268986, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    • Handle: RePEc:qsh:wpaper:268986
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://scholar.harvard.edu/smazumder//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////node/268986
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:qsh:wpaper:268986. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Richard Brandon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbrssus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.