Since the late 1980s governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have created commercial institutions in order to promote regional economic integration. The primary aim of this policy has been regarded as the promotion of economic welfare gains at the national level. The second, albeit less-emphasized goal, has been to promote regional peace through economic interdependence. This study examines the prospects for a liberal peace in the MENA by analyzing two stages of the commercial institutional peace. First, the study considers whether commercial institutions have promoted intra-regional trade in the MENA. Second, it examines whether economic interaction has had an impact on promoting peace within the region. Twenty states are considered here and the unit of analysis is the dyad-year over a 25-year period from 1990 to 2014. This study finds that commercial institutions in the MENA have only a limited positive correlation with trade volume and while there is a direct positive correlation between economic integration and peace in the region, this is quite limited. These findings suggest that the conclusions made by previous studies demonstrate a direct positive correlation between commercial institutions (and economic integration more generally) and peace, may be less applicable to some regions such as MENA.

中文翻译：

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中东和北非的经济一体化与安全：自由和平的前景如何？

自1980年代后期以来，中东和北非（MENA）政府建立了商业机构，以促进区域经济一体化。这项政策的主要目的被认为是在国家一级促进经济福利的增长。第二个目标虽然没有被强调，但却是通过经济相互依存促进区域和平。这项研究通过分析商业体制和平的两个阶段，考察了中东和北非实现自由和平的前景。首先，研究考虑了商业机构是否促进了中东和北非地区内部贸易。其次，它研究了经济互动是否对促进该地区的和平产生了影响。这里考虑了20个州，分析的单位是1990年至2014年这25年间的二年。这项研究发现，中东和北非地区的商业机构与贸易量之间只有有限的正相关关系，而该地区的经济一体化与和平之间存在直接的正相关关系，但这是非常有限的。这些发现表明，先前研究得出的结论表明，商业机构（和更广泛的经济一体化）与和平之间存在直接的正相关性，可能不适用于中东和北非等一些地区。