This thesis examines the effects of war on a state's economy. The Liberal Theory of international relations maintains that there are costs to war in terms of trade; in line with this argument, many researchers have suggested that trading partners are less likely to war with each other out of a fear of disrupting their trade, which would in turn disrupt their economies. Due to issues of elasticity and substitution, however, overall trade may not significantly decline during war. Additionally, there are known economic costs of war, such as debt. If war truly does have costs, then, it must be more in terms of costs to the national economy, rather than trade. This work examines the theory that war has costs to the economies of war initiators, and samples the economies of war initiators from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. This paper uses a time series analysis and tests for anterior, concurrent, and posterior effects of war initiation on national economies, and uses a time period of up to twenty years before and after each war event. The results indicate that there are, in general, no negative effects of war on a state's economy: only one case had a significant negative result, while two had significant positive results; these two positive cases, however, also had strong evidence of autocorrelation. These results pose a challenge to the Liberal Theories of International Relations.

This thesis analyzes Brazilian Foreign Policy in the second half of twentieth century. The case study on relations between Czechoslovakia and Brazil during the Cold War is the core of the dissertation. The study is based on unpublished materials from Czech archives. The case study is preceded by two sections: first one deals with tradition and development of Brazilian foreign policy, describes the forming of Brazil-US special relationship and the positions of Brazil in the international politics. Second chapter defines key milestones of the Brazilian Foreign Policy in the second half of 20th century for the purposes of the case study and for better understanding of the context. It focuses on relationship with Eastern Bloc, United States and Western Europe. The chapter is divided into six periods. Same periodization is then used for the case study. A chapter on the tradition of relations between Czechoslovakia and Brazil before 1945 and a chapter on the Czechoslovak intelligence service activities in Brazil are added to the case study. The case study primarily deals with political and trade relations. The case study shows us that the trade was crucial for upholding the relations. Both countries not only stood against each other in the Cold War setting, but Czechoslovakia actively supported the opposition...

My research seeks to explain the evolution of trade policy debates among American business leaders between World War I and the 1960s. The key finding is that a new framework for discussing trade policy was widely adopted after the United States became a creditor nation during World War I. This framework related tariffs and imports to exports, international lending and American foreign policy. High levels of imports ceased to be a threat and instead came to be seen as a pre-requisite for high levels of exports and a well-functioning global economy; raising the levels of imports, including through tariff cuts, became a strategy for providing American allies and debtors with dollar revenues. This new insight into the political economy of American foreign economic policy is based on new evidence from the archival records of business associations and a wide range of other primary and secondary sources. In addition to bringing to light new evidence, my research also addresses some of the gaps that still exist in the literature on the history of the foreign economic policy of the United States, the Cold War and transatlantic relations.