Showing papers in "International Studies Quarterly in 1981"

Dominance and Leadership in the International EconomyExploitation, Public Goods, and Free Rides

Abstract: It is often difficult to distinguish dominance from leadership in international economic relations. The latter concept, however, rejects exploitation and implies an often critical function in the provision of public goods. In its absence, the provision of such public goods as a market for distress goods, a steady flow of capital, and a rediscount mechanism may disappear. This stabilization function was provided by the United States in the first postwar decades, but the U.S. now has neither the will nor the international acceptance to play such a role. And a successor is not in sight.

Political Realism and Human Interests

Abstract: Although political realism is often understood as a more or less homogeneous tradition fixed on certain essential concepts, John Herz's provocative piece prompts an attempt to examine realist scholarship in a way that reveals some deep antinomies: some internal tensions that make realist scholarship, at least potentially, an evolving, open-ended “dialogue.” Specifically, Jurgen Habermas's categories of knowledge-constitutive interests—practical, technical, and emancipatory—are employed to distinguish two opposed aspects of the realist dialogue: practical realism and technical realism. Practical realism is guided by a practical cognitive interest in sustaining intersubjective understanding within the context of tradition. Its corresponding approach to inquiry and grounding is hermeneutic. Technical realism is guided by a technical cognitive interest in coming to grips with objective laws so as to expand powers of technical control over an objectified reality. Its approach to inquiry and grounding is essentially positivistic. Against this background, Herz's contribution to the realist dialogue is that, unique among realists, he brings a strong commitment to an emancipatory cognitive interest—an interest in self-reflection as the basis for the autonomous expression of will and consciousness in the human species' “self-formative process.” Interpreted in this light, Herz is seen to employ a two-sided discursive strategy, each side addressed to one of realism's two aspects, the practical and the technical. However, though brilliant in conception, Herz's argument is unlikely to be persuasive if realist scholars are at base positivist scientists oriented by a technical interest in control. In this sense, Herz's piece represents a critical “test” of realism, its essence, and its developmental potential.

Interstate System and Capitalist World-EconomyOne Logic or Two?

Abstract: This essay argues that capitalism is best conceived as a peculiar combination of economic and political processes which operate at the level of the world economy as a whole. Thus the interstate system is the political side of capitalism, not an analytically autonomous system, and its survival is dependent on the operation of the institutions which are associated with the capital-accumulation process. The argument for this approach is made as a prelude to further discussion, theoretical clarity, and empirical research. The point of this project is to distinguish between theories which conceptualize the modern world in terms of economic and political subsystems and those which regard capitalism as a system in which political and economic processes can be understood to have a single, integrated logic.

American Public Attitudes Toward Foreign Policy

Abstract: This article explores the manner in which the American public structures its attitudes toward foreign policy in the post-Vietnam era. There is general agreement among analysts that the unidimensional internationalist-isolationist continuum was a casualty of Vietnam. But there is disagreement over what kind of attitudinal structure has supplanted it. Basically, the disagreement revolves around the number of dimensions necessary to characterize attitudinal structure adequately. In exploring the conceptual foundations underlying mass attitudes toward foreign policy, this article validates a fourfold typology derived from the joint distribution of two orthogonal attitudinal factors, cooperative and militant internationalism. It then examines the political and socioeconomic correlates of mass attitudes toward traditional foreign policy issues. Finally, by controlling for contextual variables, it attempts to reincorporate attitudes toward nontraditional foreign policy issues into the bidimensional factor space, largely unsuccessfully. We speculate in conclusion that the inconsistencies that often seem to accompany foreign policy objectives and behaviors concerning nontraditional issues may not owe to any sinister origins, but may simply be an elite manifestation of what we uncovered in the mass sample.

Risk, Power Distributions, and the Likelihood of War

Abstract: Through the use of a theory of individual rational decision-making that is explicitly linked to the systemwide assumptions of Realpolitik theorists, I show that no particular distribution of power has exclusive claim as a predictor of peace or war either in theory or in the empirical record of the period 1816–1965. Assumptions related to variable attitudes toward risk-taking are used to build a simulation of decision-making under the constraint of expected utility maximization. Within the simulation I show that peace through power parity and peace through power preponderance can be supported in isolated instances, while no particular power distribution is linked to the expectation of peace in general. Similar results are reported in a replication by Singer et al. (1972) of the empirical analysis of the association between power distributions and major power war.

Some Recent Explanations of Income Inequality

Abstract: This article attempts to evaluate five alternative explanations of the size distribution of income. It is based on a regression analysis of inequality data from 71 countries and different explanatory variables taken from various theoretical approaches. Also, the proper specification of the relationship between economic development and income inequality is used. The following tentative conclusions are reached: First, the most important correlate or determinant of inequality is the level of economic development; divergent conclusions in other studies are the result of improper specification. Second, communist countries have a more equal distribution of income than other societies. Third, high military participation ratios contribute to income equalization. Fourth, judgment about democratic performance has to be postponed because democracy seems to contribute to a more egalitarian distribution of income in one data set, but not in the others. Fifth, the three versions of dependency theory under consideration—Galtung's (1971), Rubinson's (1976), and Bornschier and Ballmer-Cao's (1979) have failed to contribute significantly to the explanation of income inequality.

Transforming International RegimesWhat the Third World Wants and Why

Abstract: The domestic and international weakness of Third World states has made them exceptionally vulnerable to pressures emanating from the international system. They have attempted to ameliorate these pressures by transforming international regimes. This quest has been facilitated by their ability to capture the structure of international organizations created by the United States at the conclusion of World War II. The specific content of Third World demands and the exceptional unity maintained by the South have been conditioned by the widespread acceptance of a belief system embodying some of the precepts of dependency perspectives.

Some Recent Explanations of Income InequalityAn Evaluation and Critique

Abstract: This article attempts to evaluate five alternative explanations of the size distribution of income. It is based on a regression analysis of inequality data from 71 countries and different explanatory variables taken from various theoretical approaches. Also, the proper specification of the relationship between economic development and income inequality is used. The following tentative conclusions are reached: First, the most important correlate or determinant of inequality is the level of economic development; divergent conclusions in other studies are the result of improper specification. Second, communist countries have a more equal distribution of income than other societies. Third, high military participation ratios contribute to income equalization. Fourth, judgment about democratic performance has to be postponed because democracy seems to contribute to a more egalitarian distribution of income in one data set, but not in the others. Fifth, the three versions of dependency theory under consideration-Galtung's (1971), Rubinson's (1976), and Bornschier and Ballmer-Cao's (1979) have failed to contribute significantly to the explanation of income inequality.

The State and Dependent Capitalism

Abstract: The twentieth century appears to be the era of the state. In contemporary capitalist societies it is difficult to distinguish the private from the public sector because the state is so intimately bound up with the structures and processes of both production and consumption. In the context of dependency, this has taken common expression as a syndrome of state capitalism, one important feature of which is extensive state ownership and operation of productive enterprises in conformance with capitalist criteria. A comprehensive theoretical argument about this phenomenon, the entrepreneurial state in the context of modern dependency, is outlined and schematically represented.

Political Realism Revisited

Abstract: Originating in a debate on political realism with the late Hans Morgenthau, this article purports to reanalyze some basic concepts underlying traditional realism (such as power, security, national interest, international systems) in the light of the fundamental changes in international relations that are indicated by the terms population pressure, resources depletion, environmental destruction, and, last but not least, armament races and nuclear superarmament. In suggesting solutions (an attitude and policy of universalism replacing national and other group parochialism, for instance), I have tried to keep my approach equidistant from a utopianism that would substitute world authority for the nation-state system and from a superrealism that denies the feasibility of any more internationalist policy altogether.

Industrialization in the PeripheryThe Evolving Global Division of Labor

Abstract: The emergence of the modern semiperiphery, or new industrializing countries, involving the rapid industrialization of parts of the less developed world, has received much attention in the scholarly literature. However, this phenomenon has met with radically different interpretations. To some, this peripheral industrialization signals a new era in north-south relations and a break with the old international division of labor based on the exchange of primary and industrial goods. To others, this new development is interpreted in a more limited way. It is seen as limited in terms of the number of possible new entrants, the temporary nature of the projected “boom” period, and the nonautonomous nature of the peripheral growth process.

Peacemaking and Vested Interests: International Economic Transactions

Abstract: Two neighboring countries which have been at war with each other decide to make peace. Their governments undertake to allow their citizens to engage in trade and other economic transactions. This article considers the impact of different bilateral transactions on the welfare of producers and consumers in the two countries and hence on their attitude toward peace. Distinction is made between the effects of different kinds of transactions, including those involving existing and new trade as well as existing and new productions. Special reference is made to the recent Egyptian-Israeli peace effort.

Strategic Deception and Counterdeception, a Cognitive Process Approach

Abstract: Research in experimental psychology is applied to an analysis of problems of strategic military deception and counterdeception. In conducting deception, the deceiver has a clear advantage; empirical evidence confirms assumptions drawn from cognitive psychology that deception seldom fails when it exploits a target's preconceptions. The target's tendency to assimilate discrepant information to existing mental sets generally negates the risks to deception posed by security leaks and uncontrolled channels of information. Cognitive biases in the assessment of probabilities, evaluation of evidence, and attribution of causality are described and related to questions of deception and counterdeception. Approaches to enhancing an organization's ability to detect deception are examined. Improved intelligence collection and heightened alertness to deception are often insufficient. Cognitive aids to facilitate analysis are recommended, as is the formation of a counterdeception staff as a focal point for deception analysis.

Dialectical Foundations of Global Disparities

Abstract: This article applies a variant of the dialectical concern with the unity of opposites to the problems of continuity and change in global disparities. Based on a “North versus South” axis roughly indicating levels of inanimate energy use or technological development, and the modifying significance of “East versus West” capitalist and socialist modes of production, four contending, interpenetrating systems of global order are proposed as appropriate units for such inquiry: capitalist power-balancing, Soviet socialism, corporatist-authoritarianism, and collective self-reliance. Recent historical conditioning factors affecting more or less egalitarian development choices, in addition to class conflicts, include major world wars, and relatively late national politicoeconomic development. Lenin's 16-point restatement of Hegelian dialectics serves as a summary frame for the major hypotheses of this paper and a methodological critique of much North American research and teaching on world order and global disparities.

Imperialism in World-System PerspectiveBritain 1870–1914

Abstract: The origins of current world inequality are to be found in the nineteenth century, particularly in the period 1870–1914. The development of the world economy in this period is described, including the unique political-economic role of Great Britain within the world-system. A theory of imperialism based on the laissez-faire capitalist business cycle is developed which is intended to explain both British expansion and the accumulation of capital in the core, which is the single most salient feature of world inequality.

The Newly Industrializing Countries and the Political Economy of Protectionism

Abstract: A perennial paradox in political science is that weak actors often prevail in confrontations with more powerful actors. This article explores this problem in the context of the world trading system. The United States and the European Economic Community have been increasingly erecting selective trade barriers, such as voluntary export restraints, that discriminate against newly industrializing countries. Despite this protectionism in textiles, footwear, and other sectors, some relatively weak exporting nations have found ways to increase their gains. Ad hoc American policies have produced a structurally deficient form of trade barriers, which countries such as Taiwan and Korea have exploited. By giving priority to long-run interests, bargaining for loopholes, linking issues, cheating, and mobilizing transnational and transgovernmental allies, these exporters have generally overcome the damaging effects of protectionism. As U.S. interest groups and decision makers learn from their mistakes, the obstacles to success become more severe. But what the newly industrializing nations have shown us is that less powerful states that emphasize bargaining rather than coercion, adjustment rather than intransigence, and the substance of international agreements rather than their form, can turn an adverse situation into advantage.

World System Debates

Abstract: The world systems orientation in the field of international relations is relatively new and complements previous approaches. The contributors to this volume have in some cases reevaluated their own earlier studies to consider transhistorically manifested continuities and pressures for structural change. The major point of agreement presently reached is the perpetuation and endurance of our present world order and certain long-term structures which support it. A healthy debate takes place over the relationship between economics and the state system.

Reactions to Brandt: Popular Acclaim and Academic Attack

Abstract: These observations are based on a selection of reviews of North-South: A Program for Survival , the Report of the Independent Commission on Development Issues (1980). While the report was generally well-received by the public (although with less notice in the United States than elsewhere), professionals, particularly in Europe, were at least disappointed, even angered. This mixed and paradoxical reaction can be explained by the character of the report's solutions, which are popularly appealing, but in practical terms, have long proven unsatisfactory.

The Labour Party

Abstract: This article deals with the linkages between the parliamentary elite and the activists in the extraparliamentary organization in democratic ideological parties with bifurcated power structures. It shows how cleavages precipitated by changes in the environment of the parliamentary caucus disrupt its penetrative influence over the mass organization, opening up avenues for ideological dissidents who contend for power with the pragmatists in the parliamentary leadership. A framework for the analysis of issue-oriented factional behavior within a defined organizational setting is applied to the British Labour Party in past and contemporary struggles. The author argues that similar studies of elite/activist linkages and ideological splits may be a catalyst for theory development in the political parties field.

The 1934 Anglo-Japanese Nonaggression Pact

Abstract: Although Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, it did not completely reject the concept of international cooperation. In fact, during 1934, Japan demonstrated great interest in cementing an Anglo-Japanese nonaggression pact. Japan's overtures were well received in Britain and particularly promoted by Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain and Treasury Undersecretary Warren Fisher. In the end, negotiations broke down over the China question, but not until a complex series of communiques and commissioned studies had been exchanged. The author utilizes recently declassified British diplomatic documents as well as files from the Japanese Foreign Ministry Archives to examine in detail this important chapter of Far Eastern international politics.

The Important CommonwealthA Behavioral Indicator

Abstract: Level of attendance at 22 Commonwealth Prime Ministers/Heads of Government meetings (1944–1979) is used as an indicator to test several propositions concerning the importance of the Commonwealth to its member states. According to the indicator: (1) the Commonwealth has diminished in importance although not to the extent anticipated; (2) it is of more importance to old than to new members; (3) nevertheless, the Commonwealth is of more importance to new Commonwealth states than are the Organization of African Unity or the Nonaligned Movement; (4) the Commonwealth is less important to republics than to dominions or other monarchies; and (5) first generation leaders of new Commonwealth states attach more importance to the Commonwealth than do second generation leaders, especially when the latter have come to power by extraconstitutional means. It is proposed that a watch over levels of attendance is a useful means of monitoring the health of international summit conferencing systems like the Commonwealth.

Human Development in a Global Political EconomyPresidential Address

Abstract: In the spirit of the late nineteenth-century founders of professional social science, this is a call for communities of international scholars to join to create a new global political economy. The ingredients of such a political economy include a description and explanation of how it works, a theory defining and justifying what is “good” and “just,” an interpretation to make it understandable, and a developmental theory of how the system evolved and how it will change. Certain steps are outlined to achieve such a goal.