Lanterna Rally

Author: Joseph S. Bommarito

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13:

This dissertation seeks to add substantial knowledge to the field of international political economy by introducing novel theoretical and empirical insights via the study of international sea routes. International sea routes represent the maritime pathways that cargo ships take as they move between different countries. In the modern globalized world, these sea routes represent critical components of the global economy. This dissertation takes an economic geography approach to study how proximity to these sea routes affects international trade and development as a dependent variable. This dissertation's primary goal is to introduce how geospatial models can understand how sea routes generate the patterns and dependencies seen in studies of current trade flows. Recent work in international political economy has used network approaches to address the economic connections between states in ways beyond state-level or dyadic analysis. Literature has concluded that economic connections between countries consist of complicated patterns with many countries all linked together in different ways. Yet not enough work looks at what aspects of the global economy create these linkages. This dissertation asks how sea routes create important economic connections between countries. The economic connections created by sea routes directly impact a state's ability to engage in the global economy. This dissertation expands current knowledge by providing a novel theoretical concept of sea routes as physical and observable connections between states. This dissertation provides the first theoretical and empirical analysis of sea routes in international political economics. In doing so, this dissertation adds to the growing literature on networks of economic linkages, and determinants of trade, to provide novel testable hypotheses. These contributions lead to scientific foundations for studying essential policy considerations in the modern world. In 2021 alone, the importance of maritime policy has jumped to the forefront of policy debates with the jamming of the Suez Canal, the backlog of ships outside of LA port, and global supply chain delays. This dissertation offers the first look at how sea routes can contribute to international trade's scientific and policy discussions.