Showing papers on "International relations published in 1982"

Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World

Abstract: The study of regimes can contribute to our understanding of international politics only if regimes represent more than international organizations and less than all international relations. The conceptualization of regimes developed here accepts the realist image of international politics, in which autonomous self-interested states interact in an anarchic environment. Yet there are situations in which rational actors have an incentive to eschew unconstrained independent decision making, situations in which individualistic self-interested calculation leads them to prefer joint decision making (regimes) because independent self-interested behavior can result in undesirable or suboptimal outcomes. These situations are labeled dilemmas of common interests and dilemmas of common aversions. To deal with these, states must collaborate with one another or coordinate their behavior, respectively. Thus there are different bases for regimes, which give rise to regimes with different characteristics. Coordination is self-enforcing and can be reached through the use of conventions. Collaboration is more formalized and requires mechanisms both to monitor potential cheating and to insure compliance with the regime. The article elucidates the assumptions of such an interest-based approach to regimes, assimilates alternative explanations into this framework, and develops the implications for regime maintenance and change.

Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis.

Abstract: When is war is the result of a nation's deliberate decision to advance its vital interests by force of arms? When is it brought about by miscalculation? What causes policy-makers to misjudge the consequences of their actions? This book takes up these and other questions in a comparative study of the origins, politics, and outcomes of international crisis based on data from 27 historical cases.

On the Demand for Economic Outcomes: Macroeconomic Performance and Mass Political Support in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany

Abstract: * This paper is one in a series of articles from my project, "Comparative Studies in Political Economy," supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. SOC-7827022 and by the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. I am grateful to Christopher Pissarides, Robert J. Gordon, Alan Blinder, participants in the Labor Economics and Political Behavior seminars at Harvard University, participants in the Social Choice seminar at Washington University, and members of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Macroeconomics seminar for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations

Abstract: Acknowledgements - Preface - PART 1: FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY - The Case for International Political Theory - Men and Citizens in International Relations - Internal and External Concepts of Obligation in the Theory of International Relations - PART 2: FROM RATIONALISM TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY - Introduction to Part Two - Pufendorf's Theory of International Relations - Vattel's Society of States - Kantian Ethics and International Relations - The Dissolution of Rationalist International Theory - Freedom and History in the Political Theory of International Relations - PART 3: A HIERARCHY OF FORMS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Introduction to Part Three - From Tribalism to Political Society - From Citizenship to Humanity - Concluding Remarks - Notes and References - Select Bibliography - Index

On the notion of “interest” in international relations

Abstract: Since the notion of the “national interest” plays a pivotal role in the discourse of state action, its clarification as a normative term is historically as well as systematically important. Differing from the conventional approach, which defines the national interest according to genus and taxa, I shall argue that due to its function as a normative term the national interest cannot be understood in taxonomic categories; it necessitates an investigation of the logic of its use according to specified criteria. In this context the notion of the “public interest” is, for historical as well as systematic reasons, illuminating. As historical investigation shows, the term national interest is neither self-justificatory nor arbitrary within the conventions of the European state system until the late nineteenth century. Important changes in the international system can be traced by following the fundamentally changed usage of the term after 1870. A short comparison with and critique of Waltz's “systemic theory” of international relations concludes the article.

Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union

Abstract: Preface Introduction Part I. Stalinism and the Soviet Political System: 1. The mature Stalinist system 2. Stalin and the Soviet Political elite 3. Stalinism and the evolution of the Soviet polity Part II. Succession and Turnover of Soviet Elites: 4. The approaching succession: the top leader 5. The approaching succession: leadership and elite turnover 6. The approaching succession: generational change Part III. The Nature and Extent of Soviet Political Stability: 7. Stability: analytical considerations 8. Soviet stability and its sources 9. Soviet political stability and the question of legitimacy 10. Soviet stability and the national problem Part IV. Soviet Perceptions of International Affairs and Trends in Soviet Foreign Policy: 11. The Centrality of US-Soviet relations 12. The arms race and the correlation of forces 13. The role of the military factor in international relations 14. The Third World and the translation of power into influence Part V. Prospects for the 1980s: 15. The politics of stringency Index.

Third World MultinationalsA Growing Force in International Relations

Abstract: This article examines the growth processes of multinational corporations based in Third World states. It is suggested that both ownership and location-specific factors explain the emergence of these firms. The main competitive strengths of these firms lie in their access to manufacturing technologies suitable to the conditions of the developing world: lower operating and overhead costs, familiarity with the business environment of Third World states, and their perceived less threatening nature. The article identifies their advantages and disadvantages to home and host states and indicates that these firms could become a significant factor in the international economic system.

Alliance Norms and WarA New Piece in an Old Puzzle

Abstract: The relationship between alliance aggregation and war is one of the most perplexing research questions within the field of international relations. We propose that by measuring the degree to which international norms support binding treaty obligations, a macroindicator of alliance commitment can be devised that is grounded in the cultural attributes of the international system, and that can be used in conjunction with indicators based on structural attributes to account for the onset of war. Based on the results from tests conducted on the European great power system of 1820–1914 and the central power system of 1820–1939, we conclude that peace is best preserved when there is a moderate amount of flexibility in the structure of alliances, and when alliance commitments are considered binding by prevailing international norms.

Case Selection, Conceptualizations and Basic Logic in the Study of War

Abstract: The purpose of this Workshop article is to augment the emerging literature on problems of "cumulation" in quantitative international politics in general and international conflict in particular. This paper suggests that the attainment of answers to the questions posed by scholars who are interested in international conflict is often logically precluded by both their conceptualizations of conflict and war and by their method of selecting cases. Further, it reasons that the question of how determinants in the process that leads to war are logically related to one another and to conflict itself is as important as identifying which factors are the determinant. Although these contentions are neither original nor complex, the argument here is that a general failure to understand or recognize such rather basic, logical problems has impeded the development of a base of varifiable, replicable and generalizable knowledge about the causes and consequences of international conflict.

Conflict and the superpowers in the Horn of Africa

Abstract: The current conflict in the Horn of Africa is in many respects both regional and global. It is regional in the sense that its major driving forces are embedded in the nature of the states within this region, although this observation looks like an understatement in view of the fact that these states were themselves created by external forces. The conflict has acquired a global dimension, on the other hand, because of the level of the involvement of external actors, particularly the two superpowers. What are the implications of superpower involvement? At the regional level, this conflict directly concerns four countries, namely Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia. One major characteristic of these countries is their possession of a certain proportion of the Somali people, something which .most African historians regard as an accident of history. At this particular level of the conflict, the main issues contested are the ideals of self-determination and territorial integrity. The internationalisation of this conflict has, however, transformed it into a platform of East-West competition, involving the US and the Soviet Union with their allies. In the global context, the conflict touches on the economic, ideological, military and strategic interests of the superpowers. Both the US and the Soviet Union define what takes place in the Horn of Africawithin the perimeters of what they view as their national interests. They have often expressed concern for what they term the 'security' of this region but have not clearly defined what constitutes security for this region. Their notions of security, which to the West imply an absence of communism and to the East liberation from capitalism, do not seem to take into consideration the concrete local situation and the real needs of the peoples of this region. Indeed, most western analysts view security in terms of armaments and force levels, associating any challenge to the status quo with 'Soviet expansionism'. They, however, ignore the significance of internal struggles and the nature of production and distribution of wealth in most Third World countries. Yet it is clear that the 1978-9 Iranian revolution had nothing to do with communism and took place in a country that had the best weapons in the Persian Gulf. Even a little earlier, the 1974 Ethiopian revolution had no connection with Moscow. It was a product of the Ethiopian social formation and the Soviet Union moved in only in 1976, two years after the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie. The lesson these two cases offer is that a serious analysis of security in any region has to take cognisance of internal struggles. Given the internal and external ramifications of the conflict in the Horn, one is tempted to ask: Can the local states resolve their differences without the

Politics and Change in the Middle East

Abstract: Chapter 1: Traditional Cultures of the Middle East: The Cradle of Civilization and Politics Chapter 2: The Foundations of Islam Chapter 3: The Political Legacy of Islam, 632-1800 C.E. Chapter 4: Western Imperialism 1800-1914 C.E. Chapter 5: The Rise of the State System, 1914-1950 Chapter 6: The Drive or Self Determination, 1950-1990 Chapter 7: Turning Points Chapter 8: The Politics of Religion, Culture, and Social Life Chapter 9: Political Elites Chapter 10: Political Leadership in the Contemporary Middle East Chapter 11: The Economic Setting Chapter 12: International Relations in the Contemporary Middle East, 1945-1990 Chapter 13: International Relations in the Contemporary Middle East, 1945-1990: The Regional Actors Chapter 14: The Middle East and the Changing International Order: 1991-2001 Chapter 15: Did 9/11 Change Everything?

Mastering Modern World History

Abstract: PART 1: WAR AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - The World in 1914: Outbreak of the First World War - The First World War and Its Aftermath - The League of Nations - International Relations 1919-33 - International Relations 1933-39 - The Second World War, 1939-45 - The Cold War: Problems of International Relations after the Second World War - The Spread of Communism outside Europe and Its Effect on International Relations - The United Nations Organisation - The Two Europes, East and West since 1945 - Conflict in the Middle East - PART 2: THE RISE OF FASCISM AND GOVERNMENTS OF THE RIGHT - Italy 1918-45: the First Appearance of Fascism - Germany 1918-45: the Weimar Republic and Hitler - Japan and Spain - PART 3: COMMUNISM: RISE AND DECLINE - Russia and the Revolutions, 1900-24 - Communist Rule in the USSR, 1924-91 - China 1900-49 - China since 1949: the Communists in Control - PART 4: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - The USA before the Second World War - The USA since 1945 - PART 5: DE-COLONISATION AND AFTER - The End of the European Empires - Problems in Africa - PART 6: GLOBAL PROBLEMS - The Changing World Economy since 1900 - The World's Population

The ecowas protocol on the free movement of persons: a threat to nigerian security?

Abstract: SECURITY IS A SCARCE and sensitive commodity in international politics. States constantly seek to secure within their borders territories untroubled by internal danger or external apprehension. As a consequence, the security demands of States interact, overlap or conflict in international relations. Mainly because of this, peace and security have eluded States despite their continuous search for them. The object of this paper is to analyse the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons in the context of Nigerian security. Thus in answering the question posed by the title of the article, I shall examine whether or not the Community Protocol is antithetical or complementary to the security demands of Nigeria. Nations have entered into security alliances because such states have realized, or believed, that they had inadequate resources to confront external aggressors alone. Thus:

Race in international relations

Abstract: KE sex in Victorian England, it has been said, race is a taboo subject in contemporary polite society. Conflicts or attitudes that to the simpleminded might appear to be self-evidently racial are explained away as class-based, or as difficulties attending immigration, or as responses to special local circumstances. Certainly, race relations are not an area in which political reputations are easily made, and outspokenness on the subject seems to be the preserve of those who have little to lose, their having either departed the scene or not yet arrived at it. Yet beneath this wish to talk about something else, and perhaps in part explaining it, lurk the largest of claims for the factor of race in politics, and the direst of forebodings about the future of race relations. As early as 1903 W. E. B. Du Bois was already expressing the problem of the twentieth century as the problem of 'the colour-line', and this has been a theme of pan-African congresses to the present day. A recent British prime minister, not noted for his proneness to exaggerate, is reported as having said 'I believe the greatest danger ahead of us is that the world might be divided on racial lines. I see no danger, not even the nuclear bomb, which could be so catastrophic as that." These instincts of politicians are fortified by academic analysis. John Rex, one of the most prominent writers in Britain on race relations, has gone so far as to predict that 'for the next few centuries the problems which will preoccupy men politically more than any other will be problems which they subjectively define as problems of race'.2 Hugh Tinker, in one of the very few works on race in international politics, concludes that 'Today, transcending everything (including even the nuclear threat) there is the confrontation between the races .3 No doubt the rioting that took place in Britain in the summer of 1981 is taken by writers of this persuasion to be bitter evidence in support of their view of the place of race in society. This paper is confined to an assessment of the place of race in international relations, in so far as it is possible to distinguish, in this regard, domestic from international politics. In any event, it may be argued that it is to the history of international relations, during the imperial

World Politics and Western Reason: Universalism, Pluralism, Hegemony

Abstract: Much recent thinking about international politics and world order reflects a number of challenges, at the levels of both theory and praxis, to the global hegemony of Western modernity. It converges upon a major critique of the universalist aspirations for one united world that have emerged from the utopian or idealist traditions of international political theory. Three elements of this critique are of particular importance: the reassertion of the value of nationalism and the autonomy of the state in the face of a tradition of thought which has usually viewed the state as the major problem to be overcome; an emphasis on the importance of ‘culture’ as a central focus of analysis; and the attempt to canvass non-Western cultural traditions as a necessary part of the search for a ‘just’ world order.This study is concerned to delineate the way in which each of these issues appears if examined in the context of recent critiques of the conventional categories of modern sociopolitical theory. It argues that there ...

International humanitarian law and internationalized internal armed conflicts

Abstract: Internationalized internal armed conflicts have become a common feature of the past decades. In numerous civil wars foreign armed forces have intervened in favour of one or the other party and thereby attempted to influence the outcome of the conflict. Various causes have led to this development. One of them is the increased interdependence of States, as a consequence of which every civil war will affect other States and, conversely, the attitudes of other States may have an impact on the outcome of the civil war, even without any intervention. Another cause can be found in the world's ideological cleavage which divides nations and results in the overlapping of internal and international conflicts. Among further causes we can mention the existence of military blocs and of regional groupings which have an interest in preventing the overthrow of regimes within the bloc and tend to encourage alterations in other blocs. Another factor to be taken into consideration is the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. Whereas in earlier times States waged open wars in order to increase their power, today, due to the prohibition of the use of force, they rather endeavour to achieve the same result by interfering in the internal affairs of other States. Interference in internal conflicts is often a substitute for an international war. The instability of many contemporary regimes, mainly of the Third World, further favours the internationalization of internal conflicts.

Foreign policy, USA/USSR

Abstract: Experts in foreign policy studies discuss the most pressing issue in international relations: the rivalry between the USA and the USSR. What has been missing from previous studies is the element of comparison. These essays reveal both the differences and similarities in the behaviour of the two superpowers. They explore the characteristics of the international environment -- and the ways in which the two powers affect it. They analyze the extent to which the differences between the powers is derived from their different ideologies. Finally, their different responses to the same international problems and issues are explored. 'The individual essays are thoughtful, interesting, and refreshingly diverse in their methodological approaches.' -- The American Political Science Review, Vol 77, December 1983

Between the Stools?: U.S. Policy towards Pakistan during the Carter Administration

Abstract: THE FOREIGN POLICY of President Carter's administration was shaped by two successive and conflicting trends. The first was concern with world order issues, overall optimism, and a belief that the competition with the Soviet Union was largely won. The second trend, dominated by events in the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia, reflected a return to preoccupation with the Soviet competition and a concern that the future was by no means assured. Stanley Hoffman has presented a good overview of the course of the Carter foreign policy.' A close look at its manifestation in Pakistan, where more diverse American interests seem to intersect than anywhere else except for the United States' immediate neighbors, provides a striking example of overall policy development and illustrates the difficulty of carrying on policy with a specific country when subjected to such countervailing pulls. When Carter assumed office in 1977, Pakistan loomed fairly small on the policy horizon. The importance it had enjoyed as a link in Dulles' chain of containment had long since faded.2 Pakistan's geographic location was of dwindling interest to the United States since Iran had become the U.S. listening post and, along with Saudi Arabia, the principal support of U.S. interests in West Asia. The United States was seeking to negotiate itself and the Soviets out of the Indian Ocean power race. Pakistan's other key asset in its relations with the United States in the Nixon years had disappeared since Washington now had direct access to China. Yet Pakistan could not be treated as a negligible quantity in international affairs. It is a "small" nation only in comparison with its gigantic neighbors. In both Washington and Islamabad, there were lobbies that

Versailles after Sixty Years

Abstract: The historiography of the Paris Peace Conference has always been highly political. One of the first works to appear on the subject was a little book that Ray Stannard Baker published in 1919, What Wilson Did at Paris. Baker, who had headed the Press Bureau of the American delegation at the peace conference, said the book had been 'written chiefly to help along the League of Nations'.' President Wilson himself encouraged Baker to write a more wideranging history of the conference; the 'little book', the President said, should be its 'nucleus'.2 The result, Baker's Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement, appeared in 1922. Given Baker's ties with Wilson, it is not surprising that his book was a strong and even strident defence of Wilsonianism or in Baker's words of 'the principle of international cooperation for which he [Wilson] stood, and in which I believe to the bottom of my boots'.3 His goal, as he wrote to the editor of the New Republic (with the aim of influencing that magazine's review of the book) was to 'build up that new public opinion which we need' in order to get 'a juster view of our international relations and responsibilities'.4 The book's thesis conformed to these purposes. To Baker, the conference was essentially a struggle between proponents of a peace of reconciliation, led by Wilson, and reactionary partisans of a 'Carthaginian' peace, led by the French Prime Minister Clemenceau. Many other historians and publicists, not just in America but in Europe as well, were to take the same general line; and often the political overtones of the argument are obvious. Paul