Neutrality, often overlooked or misinterpreted in international relations, has played a crucial role in global stability, reveals a new study from Heriot-Watt University. The research analyzed nearly two centuries of data, uncovering profound implications for policymakers.
Neutrality, an often-overlooked element in the study of international relations, has a far greater impact on global stability than previously understood, according to new research led by Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed 192 years of international relations data from the Correlates of War project, covering the period from 1816 to 2007.
The study sheds new light on how neutrality influences international stability.
“Our findings show that that neutral ties were more prevalent over a long period than alliances and hostilities, and played a pivotal, but previously unquantified role, in international stability,” lead author David Dekker, a research fellow at Edinburgh Business School, said in a news release.
The traditional binary categorization of international relations as either positive or negative has often misrepresented neutrality, sometimes even branding it as negative or ignoring it altogether.
In their analysis, the researchers introduced neutrality as a third category alongside positive and negative relations. This led to the identification of 26 new types of relational groupings between countries.
They coined the term “balance correlations” to describe this nuanced measure of relational structures and argued that their method offers significant insights for policymakers.
“Policymakers can benefit from this because we’ve been able to quantify types of behavior that were not identified before,” Dekker added. He emphasized that this approach could extend beyond international relations to areas like supply chain strategies and creating stable learning environments in schools by understanding relationships between students.
The study also highlighted how neutrality can have dramatic effects on the formation and dissolution of social ties. The period from 1867 to 1936 was identified as particularly volatile due to the predominance of “neutrality behavior,” culminating in events like World War I and various other global conflicts.
“If a country chooses to be neutral to another country, that can really tip the balance in the whole system,” added Dekker.
Post-World War II data suggested a return to a more stable pattern of international relations, underscoring the dynamic nature of neutrality’s impact.
This research extends balance theory, a concept developed during World War II by Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider. By examining groupings of three, balance theory predicts relationships like “a friend of a friend is a friend” and “a friend of an enemy is an enemy,” each impacting the overall balance of sentiments in the relationship triad.