Interdependence and Conflict:
An Introduction
Edward D. Mansfield and Brian M. Pollins

Over the past few decades, there has been a surge of interest in the relationship between economic interdependence and political con›ict. One view that has gained considerable popularity and empirical support is that heightened interdependence fosters cooperative political relations. Voiced with increasing regularity in both academic and policy circles, this claim has been used to help justify the formation of the European Economic Community, Richard Nixon’s opening to China, Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, and Henry Kissinger’s conception of détente with the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, critics of this argument have not been stilled. Some observers maintain that, rather than fostering cooperation, increased interdependence generates political discord. Even more widespread is the argument that economic exchange has no strong bearing on the high politics of national security.
This debate is hardly new. For centuries, the nature and strength of the links between interdependence and con›ict have been the subject of heated disagreement. Until lately, however, these links remained the subject of remarkably little systematic scrutiny. In recent years, a growing number of studies have attempted to ‹ll this gap in the literature, but they have yet to resolve various crucial questions. Most important, how and to what extent does interdependence in›uence political antagonism? What are the causal mechanisms driving this relationship? And what is the most appropriate way to test this relationship? The purpose of this book is to shed new light on these key issues.
In this introduction, we survey the recent literature on the effects of economic interdependence on political con›ict, placing primary emphasis on these questions and on the theoretical and empirical developments needed to