Economic Peace Revisited: Coercion in a Liberal Order

Scholars have argued whether democratic peace also holds in the realm of economic sanctions – whether there is an economic peace. Substantial amounts of evidence have been gathered both for and against economic peace. We can see that findings have been extremely sensitive to changes in research design – new data or changes in statistical methods have led to divergent results. This article provides new insight, with the use of the updated TIES data set and improved methodology, into the topic of economic peace. I find that democracies are more likely to issue economic sanctions, and that there is no economic peace. In fact, democracies are more likely to sanction one another. I indicate that lack of economic peace is consistent with the public choice approach to economic sanctions. I argue that the exercise of power in the liberal order has been rechannelled to economic coercion.