Thesis:
Alliances and quasi-alliances tend to occur among countries that are highly economically interdependent on one another.
Definitions:
Alliances are formal or informal arrangements for security cooperation between two or more sovereign states.
Quasi-alliances are formal arrangements for non-security cooperation between two or more sovereign states such as the European Union and ASEAN.
We define interdependence as nation-states relying on each other as a market for the exchange of goods and services. We will measure interdependence by comparing the percentage of GNP that one state is responsible for in another.
We are planning on researching two regions:
Western Europe and Asia in the post-World War II era. We chose this
period specifically because we can obtain accurate GNP information.
We want to compare two different regions firstly to determine if the
thesis is true and secondly to provide a broader research base.
If our thesis is correct there should be a
trend toward alliance formation between economically interdependent
countries and a absence of alliances between countries that are not
economically interdependent.
Alternative Thesis
Economic interdependence is not correlated with the formation of alliances between sovereign states.
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