Showing papers in "International Studies Quarterly in 1968"

Comparative Foreign Policy: Fad, Fantasy, or Field?

Abstract: All tlhe signs are pointing in the same direction: as a television commercial might describe it, "Comparative Foreign Policy is coming on strong for the 1970s!" A few undergraduate and graduate courses with this title are now being taught.' Several conferences on allied topics have recently been held2 and a couple of these have even resulted in the appearance of publications on the subject.3 Occasionally a paper is delivered4 or book published5 which

The Subordinate State System of Southern Africa

Abstract: This paper hypothesizes the existence of a subordinate state system in Southern Africa.l Evidence will be produced to show that this system can be described as an entity, that it operates quite independently of the dominant world power blocs, and most importantly, that it can best be analyzed and understood in terms of its own interrelations. Having postulated this system, I will then analyze the forces and pressures, both on and within the system, in an effort to assess the system's prospects for stability. The idea of joining the notion of an integrated system with that of a discussion about the possibility of future stability in the area

The Concept of Alliance

Abstract: In April, 1965, the Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations indicated its intention to inquire into the status of American alliance commitments. The inquiry was designed to begin an analysis of the underlying premises upon which American alliance policy was based. Specifically the Subcommittee raised the following questions:

Approach-Avoidance Bargaining in the Test Ban Negotiations

Abstract: The partial nuclear test ban agreement of 1963 has frequently been cited as the most significant outcome of over twenty years of negotiating disarmament with the Soviet Union, but the agreement was reached only after several years of negotiation of the most intensive sort ever entered into by nation-states. During the fiveyear period in which the negotiations took place, over 400 formal meetings were devoted specifically to the nuclear test ban question, exclusive of frequent references to the problem in larger international bodies concerned with questions of disarmament. In view of the effort expended, it would seem that agreement ought to have been achieved earlier than it was. Significant technical consensus had been reached as early as the summer of 1958 at the Conference of Experts held in Geneva, and by October 1960, 17 articles and the annex had been agreed upon. The delay in reaching agreement is difficult to explain if one assumes that the two sides were serious about a comprehensive test ban. Rather than approaching each other at the point of agreement, the two states in their relations with one another appear to have exhibited approach-avoidance tendencies. The theory of approach-avoidance, which is usually applied to individual motivation, suggests that if one is ambivalent about a goal when he is at a distance from that goal, there is a tendency to approach; near the goal the tendency to avoid is greater. The result is a self-sustaining conflict at the point where approach and

The Pattern of Contemporary Regional Integration

Abstract: This essay on contemporary regional integration is an invitation to empirical research, rather than a report on research completed or an attempt to preempt empirical analysis. Suggestions are put forward indicating possible ways that the myriad of variables in analyzing regional integration might be made operational and might be observed. Throughout the essay, the underlying question is: "Can we better understand contemporary regional integration, and especially Western European integration, by looking at the problems and processes involved in a new and more unified light?" The sequence of hypotheses developed here suggests that we can. The changing structure of the contemporary international system evidences the impacts of two processes of political change, national integration and regional integration. Governments and elites in more than a score of newly independent states are cur-

International Politics: The Past as Science

Abstract: "Science" is one of this century's supreme values, roughly on a level with "democracy" or "peace." Nobody very willingly admits to unenthusiasm about these totems, while everybody eagerly accuses his enemies of hating them all. The discipline of international politics has been no exception. In the civil conflict which has characterized it over the last decade, each side has sought either to lay claim to the banner of "science" or to deny that banner to its opponents.' The resulting debate has been vehement, and this has led many to conclude that one side or the other is wrong; it has also been flatulently irrelevant, and this leads me to suggest that both sides are wrong. Their error, I think, lies paradoxically in their agreement. The general lack of communication between the parties has been relieved primarily by their acceptance of common notions about the

“Regional” Trading Patterns 1938–1963

Abstract: In my recent International Regions and the International System' I examined the relationships over the post-World War II period among a number of variables generally considered relevant to delineating regional groupings of nations. In the tradition of taxonomy, the exercise showed clusterings of nations as determined separately by the criteria of cultural similarity, similarity of behavior in international politics, common membership in international organizations, economic interdependence, and geographic proximity. Additionally, it explored at a more general and theoretical level the interaction among these different influences, including changes over time, the degree to which the knowledge of nations' clustering by one criterion could be used to predict how states would cluster on another, and the relation of the clusterings to patterns of violent conflict. The book-length examination was limited, however, to information on bonds among nations during the 1950's and early 1960's. Most of the basic data sources (aggregate data on national characteristics, international organization memberships) were not generally available or (UN voting patterns)2 were inapplicable to the interwar

Organizations and Integration in International Systems

Abstract: In this paper, I propose to develop a research design in an attempt to facilitate theory-building in the study of international organizations. Having done this I will describe some applications of this approach in teaching. I have proceeded in this particular way because I am concerned that most, though not all, of the seminars with which I am familiar, and most of the textbooks in international organization which are still being written, reflect a disproportionate emphasis on only a few of the organizations which make up the United Nations and, to a lesser extent, the League of Nations.1 There are at the last official count,2 2,134 intergovernmental (IGO's) and nongovernmental (NGO's) international organizations in existence, and this does not

Africa and Non-alignment: A Comparative Study of Foreign Policy

Abstract: Research in international relations has many goals. One of the most important is the attempt to establish propositions which can serve to explain and perhaps predict the international behavior of the basic units of the international system, the nation-states. Ideally, such propositions will eventually be brought together to form a coherent theory of foreign policy. In this paper I have adopted the position that the most direct approach to this goal is the comparative study of the foreign policies of a number of state-actors. This method has the great advantage of increasing the number of units of study from one international system to a maximum of over one hundred and thirty states. This increase in units of analysis permits the use of statistics which, in turn, permits the use and manipulation of large quantities of data. By means of various statistical techniques one may draw from the data measures of foreign policy behavior, examine the relationships between theoretically interesting variables, test hypotheses, and develop causal models or theories of foreign policy. This paper illustrates only one aspect of this approach by means of an analysis of the foreign policies of thirty-two African states with

The United Nations Treaty Series Project

Abstract: This article describes the origin and growth of the first research project using computers in international law. Substantive results have been reported elsewhere' and more publications continue to come out.2 The present article concentrates on the entrepreneurial process of the project. The description aims at encouraging those who like to think that it is still possible to start a major project with nothing but a new idea and a lot of persistence. This is not to

A Critique of Raymond Aron's Theory of War and Prescriptions

Abstract: It is obvious that Raymond Aron is a brilliant as well as a troubled man. What troubles him is that modern man's technology may have advanced further than his capabilities to control it because the international system has not yet escaped the state of nature, and hence war still exists. He wants to know whether states and statesmen will successfully use thermonuclear weapons diplomatically (through deterrence) and not militarily. This search is his justification "that a social scientist, trained in philosophy, can legitimately take on an interest in the problems ... that nuclear weapons pose for governments and for humanity in general."' As we shall see, even though Aron says in his more philosophical moments that the world is absurd, he has hope that the human race will learn and thereby survive. Even though war is inevitable, given the nature of international politics, peace through preparing for a war-never-to-be-fought is possible; indeed, that is the only kind of peace attainable unless the West wants to capitulate. This peace, however, is disturbed by limited wars that are likely and even necessary; but prudence will be the statesmen's best guide during a peace pock-marked with limited wars.

International Relations and the Relevance of History

Abstract: It has become a commonplace that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat them. Yet the problem of what lessons of the past apply to current situations remains a thorny one. In his book, The Bitter Heritage, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has pointed out that the statesman's memory of historical events may entrap as well as enlighten him. In certain situations the memory of recent historical events may cause a man to draw false analogies and thereby institute policies that lead to disaster. Occasionally a lack of historical memory may be a positive benefit in making policy decisions. The difficulty and danger of using historical analogies as aids in making policy is illustrated in a quotation that Schlesinger uses from the writings of Mark Twain.

Science, Technology and International Politics

Abstract: As the supexpowers of the 1960's have been discovering that they can neither make war on nor make peace with each other, the arms race between them has been giving way to a space race, itself part of a larger science and technology race. The space industry is today one of the world's greatest, even though -there are only two major customers for its product, the governments of the Soviet Union and of the United States. Leadership in that industry is a hallmark of superpower status, but the entrance fee and the annual dues are both so high that the space club will remain small. The Soviet-American science race is only the most dramatic reason for a student of world politics to pay close attention to changes, and especially to differential changes, in the world's science and technology. There is probably no other resource that can be made to serve so many alternative national purposes as a nation's scientific and technical manpower. There is no better indicator of tomorrow's wealth and power than today's science capability. Indeed, this resource is so fungible and so precious that if one wanted to plot the position of states of the world in the 1980's along a curve of economic advancement (and of per capita influence in world politics), a very good measure would be the

The Use of University Resources in Foreign Policy Research

Abstract: My purpose in these remarks is to call on the Federal Government and its various agencies-both legislative and executive-to make a major commitment to a new kind of basic research. What I am advocating is a large-scale investment in behavioral science research, centered in the universities, and concerned with foreign policy issues and foreign areas. The research would be marked by two central characteristics: (1) It would be a completely and genuinely independent effort, built on the understanding that any assumptions may be freely entertained, no matter how heretical they might appear, and any ideas may be fully pursued, no matter where they might ultimately lead. (2) It would be defined as a task for the international community of behavioral scientists, so that, to the maximum degree possible, research would be designed, reviewed, carried out, and analyzed by American scholars in collaboration with their colleagues from other parts of the world. I shall try to show why such an investment in an independent and international research effort is of crucial importance to our society. I will then proceed to point to the almost total absence of government support for such research at the present time, using Project Camelot and its aftermath as points of reference for the distance that we have yet to travel. Finally, I shall spell out some of

Canadian-American Relations: Myth and Reality

Abstract: The last decade has generated a rapidly growing body of literature on Canadian-American relations. The question whether this growth has been rapid enough is itself a matter of dispute. Although many ideas recur often in this literature, few have been subjected to critical examination; many have, in fact, assumed the status of axioms. The purpose of this essay is to review a number of these ideas in order to separate the misleading, irrelevant, and false ones from those that are provocative, imaginative, and useful. Three categories of ideas will be examined: (1) those that define the basic situation; (2) those that identify certain aspects of the situation as "problem" areas; and (3) those that suggest responses to the problem however it is defined.

Improving International Education in Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Study of Research and Development Needs

Abstract: Among the changes in American life spawned by the continuing revolution in world affairs is a growing interest in the international education of American citizens. The curriculum in our schools and universities is gradually acquiring a more global and comparative focus. The mass media's coverage of international affairs is increasing in volume and generally in quality. A growing number of private organizations are conducting programs in adult education aimed at enhancing the public's understanding of world affairs. Recently, the President proposed that the federal government substantially expand its subsidy to international education, particularly at the university level. A point has been reached in the process of expanding international education where we can profitably pause to take stock of what has been done and to look ahead to some of the tasks that should be tackled in the course of the next several years. The Foreign Policy Association, with the support of the United States Office of Education, is engaged in one such effort. This paper is both a brief description of our aims and an invitation to international studies specialists for help in achieving these objectives. The international education of American children and adoles

Methodology in International Studies: A Critique

Abstract: Chairman: Fred A. Sondermann, Department of Political Science, The Colorado College. Panelists: Hedley Bull, Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit, Bri-tish Foreign Office; William D. Coplin, Department of Political Science, Wayne State University; Michael Haas, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii; Bruce Russett, Political Data Program, Yale University; Edward Weisband, Department of Government, New York University. Rapporteur: Christopher Beal, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Reply to Professor North

Abstract: Several points in Professor North's response to my criticisms of the Stanford content analysis studies merit comment.' First, I would like to acknowledge an error when I said that only actions, and not statements, were coded as stimuli (S) and reported that actions were coded for hostility when in fact they are coded for level of violence. The main point of my argument, which may have gotten lost in the length of my article and North's reply, is that we can have no confidence that S. r, s, and R accurately measure stimulus, perception, intention, and response. This is especially true for r and s. The failure to take into account the possibility that what actors say may be influenced by the beliefs they want others to adopt, the fact that r and s are mechanically affected by the number of times a position is reiterated, and the inability of the Stanford content analysis method to make judgments on which documents are more important than others mean that the readings on the r and s "meter boxes"2 do not correspond to what we normally think of as per-