Political economy of peace and war

This essay discusses two questions: (i) what has been the dominant influence on international relations, economics, or politics, and (ii) what economic or political relations are most conducive to war and peace? The first pits those who claim that it is the political relations of states which shape their economic relations against those who claim that it is the economic relations of states which shape their political relations. This leaves open the question of what kind of economic or political relations are most conducive to peace and war. Economists have mainly seen economics as pacifying otherwise belligerent political structures, but this was not true of Marxist Leninists, for whom ‘capitalism means war’. Political scientists have generally advocated supranational structures to tame the ‘international anarchy’, but this is not true of those peace theorists for whom the international structure can be self-policing if its constituent parts are democratic. This essay explores the different historical phases of these debates, spanning from the eighteenth century till today. It concludes that politics has always been dominant in setting the economic agenda and that democracies are drifting towards an economic system similar to that of the despotisms they condemn.