bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games
Authors: Putnam Robert D.
Published: May 2009

Domestic politics and international relations are often inextricably entangled, but existing theories (particularly “state-centric” theories) do not adequately account for these linkages. When national leaders must win ratification (formal or informal) from their constituents for an international agreement, their negotiating behavior reflects the simultaneous imperatives of both a domestic political game and an international game. Using illustrations from Western economic summitry, the Panama Canal and Versailles Treaty negotiations, IMF stabilization programs, the European Community, and many other diplomatic contexts, this article offers a theory of ratification. It addresses the role of domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic political institutions and practices, the strategies and tactics of negotiators, uncertainty, the domestic reverberation of international pressures, and the interests of the chief negotiator. This theory of “two-level games” may also be applicable to many other political phenomena, such as dependency, legislative committees, and multiparty coalitions.
Anarchy and the limits of cooperation: a realist critique of the newest liberal institutionalism
Authors: Grieco Joseph M.
Published: May 2009

The newest liberal institutionalism asserts that, although it accepts a major realist proposition that international anarchy impedes cooperation among states, it can nevertheless affirm the central tenets of the liberal institutionalist tradition that states can achieve cooperation and that international institutions can help them work together. However, this essay's principal argument is that neoliberal institutionalism misconstrues the realist analysis of international anarchy and therefore it misunderstands realism's analysis of the inhibiting effects of anarchy on the willingness of states to cooperate. This essay highlights the profound divergences between realism and the newest liberal institutionalism. It also argues that the former is likely to be proven analytically superior to the latter.
The changing relationship between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
Authors: Feinberg Richard E.
Published: May 2009

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been bedeviled since their common creation over how to define their areas of specialized competence and how to interact in areas of overlapping jurisdiction. The multiple shocks that have destabilized the global economy over the last two decades have stimulated the Bank and Fund to alter fundamentally their programs and approaches, often without fully taking into account their relation to the work of the other Bretton Woods agency.

The Fund's traditional focus on short-term stabilization, correcting external account imbalances, and fighting inflation, contrasted with the World Bank's provision of long-term funds for investment in capital-intensive projects. But more recently, with the establishment of the IMF's Extended Fund Facility and the Bank's structural adjustment lending, both institutions share the objective of adjustment with growth, and each claims some responsibility for an extremely wide range of policy instruments. The new Structural Adjustment Facility, in particular, has the potential to link more tightly decision-making on Fund stand-by arrangements and Bank structural adjustment lending, increasing the probability of new forms of cross-conditionality—termed here consultative cross-conditionality, interdependent cross-conditionality, and indirect financial linkage.

The Bank and Fund need to find ways to better delineate and manage their new relationship. Problems that should be addressed to do so include proper modes of collaboration between Bank and Fund staff, issue specialization, the avoidance of piling on excessively detailed performance requirements, and decisions on ineligibility. Enhanced cooperation between the Bank and Fund can not only produce more coherent adjustment programs, but can also help to mobilize other sources of official and private capital.
A tale of two worlds: core and periphery in the post-cold war era
Authors: Goldgeier James M. , McFaul Michael
Published: May 2009

As the world moves away from the familiar bipolar cold war era, many international relations theorists have renewed an old debate about which is more stable: a world with two great powers or a world with many great powers. Based on the chief assumptions of structural realism—namely, that the international system is characterized by anarchy and that states are unitary actors seeking to survive in this anarchic system—some security analysts are predicting that a world of several great powers will lead to a return to the shifting alliances and instabilities of the multipolar era that existed prior to World War II. For instance, John Mearsheimer argues that “prediction[s] of peace in a multipolar Europe [are] flawed.” Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder argue that states in a multipolar world can follow either the pre-World War I or the pre-World War II alliance pattern, thus implying that a third course is improbable. They further assert that “the fundamental, invariant structural feature, international anarchy, generally selects and socializes states to form balancing alignments in order to survive in the face of threats from aggressive competitors.” The realist argument predicts that great powers in a self-help international system will balance one another through arms races and alliance formations.
Growth waves, systemic openness, and protectionism
Authors: Thompson William R. , Vescera Lawrence
Published: May 2009

There is a distinctively repetitive quality about trade policy problems. Domestic economic growth slows; producers seek protection against foreign competitors; and national decision makers raise barriers to trade while at the same time criticizing their counterparts in other governments for engaging in similar practices. Because trade is one of the more important topics in international and comparative political economy and because this scenario has played itself out more than a few times, it is not surprising that a number of theorists have sought to model the underlying processes thought to produce movements toward and away from protectionism.
Matching humanitarian norms with cold, hard interests: the making of refugee policies in Mexico and Honduras, 1980–80
Authors: Hartigan Kevin
Published: May 2009

Serious consideration of the role of humanitarian norms and institutions in policymaking does not require the abandonment of an interest-based, rational actor model of policy analysis. However, it does require that scholars focus their attention on international institutional arrangements which are normally overlooked by realists but which may determine the ways in which policymakers match their interests with policy options. The analysis presented here assumes that policies are based on policymakers' calculations of national interests, but it posits that these calculations are affected by incentives and policy options emanating from international norm-promoting institutions. The study attempts to explain how the intervention of an institution of this type led policymakers in two cases to reassess and reinterpret their interests on issues of humanitarian norm compliance.
Side-payments versus security cards: domestic bargaining tactics in international economic negotiations
Authors: Friman H. Richard
Published: May 2009

The literature on international economic cooperation has devoted relatively little attention to domestic bargaining tactics and their determinants. Recent scholarship has tended to stress the utility and frequency of side-payments while discounting other prominent bargaining tactics and a broader understanding of tactical choice. This article argues that policymakers choose among domestic bargaining tactics to garner support when faced with situations in which other government officials or societal interest groups block the ratification of international economic agreements. Focusing on offers of side-payments and attempts at issue redefinition, the article's findings suggest that differences in domestic resistance to proposals of material compensation and in external security threat may explain choices between those tactics in domestic bargaining.
Structural power: the limits of neorealist power analysis
Authors: Guzzini Stefano
Published: May 2009

Realism explains the ruling of the international system through the underlying distribution of power among states. Increasingly, analysts have found this power analysis inadequate, and they have developed new concepts, most prominently structural power. The usage of structural power actually entails three different meanings, namely indirect institutional power, nonintentional power, and impersonal power. Only the first, however, is compatible with the current neorealist choice-theoretical mode of explanation. This is the basic paradox of recent power approaches: by wanting to retain the central role of power, some international relations and international political economy theory is compelled to expand that concept and to move away from the very theory that claims to be based on power. Neorealism does not take power seriously enough. At the same time, these extensions of the concept are themselves partly fallacious. To account simultaneously for the different meanings of structural power and to avoid a conceptual overload, this article proposes that any power analysis should necessarily include a pair or dyad of concepts of power, linking agent power and impersonal governance. Finally, it sketches some consequences of those concepts for international theory.
Understanding change in international politics: the Soviet empire's demise and the international system
Authors: Koslowski Rey , Kratochwil Friedrich V.
Published: May 2009

The succession of mostly nonviolent revolutions that replaced Eastern European communist governments in 1989 and the lack of any action by the Soviet Union to stop these changes transformed the international political system. Since these changes were not driven by changes in relative capabilities, they did not follow the postulates of neorealist theory. Rather, the revolutions of 1989 changed the rules governing superpower conflict and, thereby, the norms underpinning the international system. This constructivist perspective systematically links domestic and international structures with political practice and shows that international systems consist of ensembles of social institutions. These institutions change in response not only to shifting distributions of capabilities but also to redefinition of actors' identities as well as changes in state-society relations. Transformations of the international system occur when political practices change and therefore fail to reproduce the familiar international “structures.”
Learning and foreign policy: sweeping a conceptual minefield
Authors: Levy Jack S.
Published: May 2009

Do political leaders learn from historical experience, and do the lessons of history influence their foreign policy preferences and decisions? It appears that decision makers are always seeking to avoid the failures of the past and that generals are always fighting the last war. The “lessons of Munich” were invoked by Harry Truman in Korea, Anthony Eden in Suez, John Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and George Bush in the Persian Gulf War. The “lessons of Korea” influenced American debates about Indochina, and the “lessons of Vietnam” were advanced in debates about crises in the Persian Gulf and in Bosnia. Statesmen at Versailles sought to avoid the mistakes of Vienna and those at Bretton Woods, the errors of the Great Depression. Masada still moves the Israelis, and Kosovo drives the Serbs. Inferences from experience and the myths that accompany them often have a far greater impact on policy than is warranted by standard rules of evidence. As J. Steinberg argues, in words that apply equally well to the Munich analogy and the Vietnam syndrome, memories of the British capture of the neutral Danish fleet at Copenhagen in 1807 (the “Copenhagen complex”) “seeped into men's perceptions and became part of the vocabulary of political life,” and it influenced German decision making for a century.
The origins and sustainability of Mexico's free trade policy
Authors: Pastor Manuel , Wise Carol
Published: May 2009

Standard explanations for trade liberalization do not fully account for Mexico's turn toward free trade during the 1980s. To a large extent, the initiative came from within the country. Even many Mexican entrepreneurs whose sectors seem likely to lose from increased competition now support trade liberalization. Four conditions lowered the “political cost-benefit ratio” for policymakers and entrepreneurs. First, Mexico's leaders dispersed implementation into several financial ministries, thereby better insulating this policy from lobbying by the likely “losers.” Second, potential losers were less well-informed than were likely “winners.” Third, under these conditions, the liberal ideological biases of Mexican elite policymakers and investors flourished, prompting them to accept a higher political cost than would have been tolerated otherwise. Finally, many Mexicans came to perceive trade liberalization as a necessary tool in the fight against inflation. Each of these hypotheses, however, also flags a possible threat to the policy's future political survival.
Informal market governance in Japan's basic materials industries
Authors: Tilton Mark
Published: May 2009

Too much emphasis has been placed on formal state policies and on ties between individual firms to explain Japanese economic behavior and impediments to imports in Japanese markets. We need to look instead at informal governance by trade associations. In so doing, the concept of relational contracting should be applied not just to dyadic relationships between individual firms but also to relationships between entire industries. Whole industries engage in relational contracting to ensure the stability of both prices and supplies. These industry agreements stabilize Japanese markets but at the same time keep imports out of them. This informal governance complements state policies to support uncompetitive industries. These agreements are more likely to occur and succeed between selling and buying industries that each are relatively concentrated, when upstream products are standardized, when upstream goods constitute a smaller share of downstream production costs, when these sectors have not experienced previous conflicts that undermine cooperation, and when the Ministry of International Trade and Industry wants a domestic supply of its products.
Dialectical functionalism: stagnation as a booster of European integration
Authors: Corbey Dorette
Published: May 2009

Theories of integration fail to explain the stop-and-go nature of European integration. This failures stems from their one-sided attention to either the member states or the institutions of the European Union (EU). The process of integration is best described as one of action and reaction, involving the institutions of the EU, member states, and interest groups. Governments respond to European integration in one policy area by intervening more in adjacent areas, thus inducing policy competition between national states. When their rivalry becomes counterproductive, member states will be motivated to take new steps toward further integration. This interpretation explains the stop-and-go rhythm of European integration and results in a new theoretical framework termed ‘dialectical functionalism.’
Globalization and the changing logic of collective action
Authors: Cerny Philip G.
Published: May 2009

Globalization transforms collective action in domestic and international politics. As the scale of markets widens and as economic organization becomes more complex, the institutional scale of political structures can become insufficient for the provision of an appropriate range of public goods. A process of this sort occurred prior to the emergence of the modern nation-state, which itself constituted a paradigmatic response to this predicament. Today, however, a complex process of globalization of goods and assets is undermining the effectiveness of state-based collective action. Overlapping “playing fields” are developing, made up of increasingly heterogeneous—transnational, local, and intermediate—arenas. The residual state retains great cultural force, and innovative projects for reinventing government are being tried. Nevertheless, the state's effectiveness as a civil association has eroded significantly, and this may lead to a crisis of legitimacy.
The political economy of nontariff barriers: a cross-national analysis
Authors: Mansfield Edward D. , Busch Marc L.
Published: May 2009

Nontariff barriers to trade are most pervasive when deteriorating macroeconomic conditions give rise to demands for protection by pressure groups, when countries are sufficiently large to give policymakers incentives to impose protection, and when domestic institutions enhance the ability of public officials to act on these incentives. Statistical results based on a sample of advanced industrial countries during the 1980s support the argument that the incidence of nontariff barriers tends to be greatest when the preferences of pressure groups and policymakers converge. More attention should be devoted to the interaction between societal and statist factors in cross-national studies of trade policy.
An institutional critique of intergovernmentalism
Authors: Garrett Geoffrey , Tsebelis George
Published: May 2009

Most intergovernmentalist analyses of European integration focus on treaty bargaining among European Union member governments. Recent articles also have examined everyday decision making through power index analysis, an approach that asserts that a government's ability to influence policy is a function of all possible coalitions in the Council of Ministers to which it is pivotal. This approach suffers from two major weaknesses. First, it fails to take into account the policy preferences of governments; it overestimates the influence of governments holding extreme preferences and underestimates that of more centrist governments. Second, power index analysis fails to consider the important roles of the Commission of the European Communities and the European Parliament in legislative processes. Today's procedures affect the mix of agenda-setting and veto power, and this has systematic effects on policy outcomes. If intergovernmentalism is to explain choices made during treaty rounds, it must take into account these legislative dynamics.
The partisan paradox and the U.S. tariff, 1877–1934
Authors: Epstein David , O'Halloran Sharyn
Published: May 2009

Whereas historical accounts of U.S. tariff policy from 1877 to 1934 emphasize the pivotal role of parties, previous quantitative studies have failed to identify significant partisan effects. A formal model of policymaking in which strong parties aggregate voters' preferences provides empirical equations to test for partisan effects. Subsequent time series analysis shows that, even after controlling for interest group demands, partisan control of government did significantly affect the tariff. Moreover, during the period under study, the two political parties enacted tariff policies that benefited different sets of producer groups at the expense of others. Thus, political institutions did play a significant role in shaping the interests that influence U.S. foreign economic policy.
The Development of UNESCO's Program
Authors: Ascher Charles S.
Published: May 2009

UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — has completed its first three years of activity. Its General Conference has resolved that its fifth session, to be held in Florence in May 1950, shall state with greater precision the long-term program of the organization, to be distinguished from its more transitory undertakings. It may be useful at this time to trace some forces in the development of UNESCO's plan of work.
The United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees
Authors: Richardson Channing B.
Published: May 2009

The United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees presents a challenging example of the world's response to a new and sudden human tragedy at a time when its sympathies had almost been drained away by recent appeals. The need for relief measures in the Middle East was created by the flight of at least 750,000 Arabs from their homes in Palestine during 1948. The problem was first brought to the attention of the United Nations by the late Count Folke Bemadotte and the Arab League in July of that year, and there was set in motion an ad hoc relief organization, the direct descendant of which is functioning at the present time. A brief survey of the operation to date provides a study in the manner in which international organizations, governmental and nongovernmental, have met human needs in an area seething with tension and tragedy.
The United Nations and Colonial Development
Authors: Fox Annette Baker
Published: May 2009

Organized international intervention in colonial affairs has never found favor in the eyes of the European colonial powers. It did not at San Francisco when they sought to restrict the United Nations role in non-self-governing territories. It was not well received when the Security Council dealt with Indonesia nor were its results favored when the General Assembly disposed of the Italian empire. It does not please them, now, when the focus of public attention is on the political, economic, and social development of the colonies.
Bretton Woods Reappraised
Authors: Kindleberger Charles P.
Published: May 2009

The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development were established and have passed their infancy under a barrage of criticism. There were originally grave doubts as to the wisdom of creating the institutions at all. Four years of operations have been attended by a wide range of adverse comment, varying from attacks on the salary and allowance scale on the one hand, to accusations of perversion and misuse by the United States on the other. The main criticism has been, however, that the institutions were inadequate to meet the economic problems of the postwar world. Evidence for this may be found positively in the proposals for drastic revision of the articles and practice of both institutions put forward by an international group of experts in a United Nations report, and negatively by the recommendations of the Gray report, which calls for stabilization-fund loans to European countries to meet the problem once solved by the establishment of the Fund, and an expanded Point IV program, with additional funds for the Export-Import Bank, to assist the Bank in the discharge of its long-run task.
Gatt After Six Years: An Appraisal
Authors: Gorter Wytze
Published: May 2009

As this is being written, representatives of the thirty-three nations that are signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have just met again in Geneva. Their deliberations, though usually given minor notice in the press, are important. About four-fifths of the world's international trade is carried on by the countries participating in GATT.
Collective Security: The Validity of an Ideal
Authors: Johnson Howard C. , Niemeyer Gerhart
Published: May 2009

Collective security is a term that has been applied to a variety of different arrangements. Originally and traditionally, it denoted the League of Nations type of security system. Lately, it has been used to describe the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with its inter-governmental machinery, as well as other regional or non-regional defense pacts
The International Court of Justice and Domestic Jurisdiction: Notes on the Aglo-Iranian Case
Authors: Rolin Henri
Published: May 2009

The dispute between Britain and Iran relating to the nationalization and seizure of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company concessions and refinery plants by the government of Premier Mossadegh aroused unusual interest when brought before the International Court of Justice by Britain in 1951. The Iranian Oil Nationalization Act, coming after long and bitter negotiations between the oil company and the Iranian Government over oil royalties and operational arrangements, carried with it important political and strategic considerations.
The Draft Constitution for a European Political Community
Authors: Karp Basil
Published: May 2009

The governments of the Schuman Plan countries – Belgium, France, west Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – are now examining plans for a European Political Community. The basis of the present discussions is a draft constitution which would consolidate the institutions of the Coal-Steel Community and the European Defense Community, once the latter is ratified, and would provide a framework within which further unification might take place. Its major innovations would be a provision – already approved in principle by the governments – for popular elections to a European Assembly, and a more controversial proposal looking toward gradual extension of the common market.
Regional Organization and the United Nations
Authors: Padelford Norman J.
Published: May 2009

One of the marked features of international relations in recent years has been the growth of regional groupings and organizations. Included among the more notable regional arrangements formed since 1944 are the League of Arab States, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, the Organization of American States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the European Coal and Steel Community. In addition to these and other existent arrangements are proposals for the creation of a European Defense Community and a European Political Community, the idea of a Pacific Pact resembling NATO, the concept of a Middle East Defense organization, and a possible linkage of Asian States.
The UN Security Council
Authors: Goodrich Leland M.
Published: May 2009

It has been the unfortunate fate of the United Nations to have been most conspicuously unsuccessful in performing that task which was to be its major responsibility and for which it was supposed to be best equipped. Naturally this has also been the fate of the Security Council upon which the Members of the Organization, by the terms of Article 24, conferred “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. Against this background of failure and consequent dissatisfaction, many have been asking whether the Security Council is fated to become like the human appendix, an atrophied organ with no useful function to perform or whether the present condition is not one that can and should be remedied or that perhaps will be changed in any case by an improvement in the state of international relations. To form a judgment on these possibilities it is necessary to recall the original conception of the Security Council, to review its record, and to analyze the causes of its decline and the likelihood of their elimination or counterbalancing by other forces.
Europe and the Nato Shield
Authors: Wolfers Arnold
Published: May 2009

Pressures to extend the activities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into fields other than the military, or actually to shift the emphasis to political, economic, and cultural objectives, have been so strong in recent years that one wonders whether there has not been a growing tendency, particularly in Europe, to lose sight of the purpose for which NATO was established and which makes it vital to the United States. Essentially, NATO is a multilateral military alliance for the protection of western and southern Europe against Soviet conquest, a means of denying these areas and their resources to the Soviets. If the members of the alliance, on one side or the other of the Atlantic, were ever to reach the conclusion that the threat of military attack from the east had vanished or that it could not be countered effectively by common military effort, NATO would have lost its original raison d'être, though it might be continued for the sake of what today are secondary non-military functions, such as political conciliation and economic collaboration. It should be added that the primacy of the military purpose of NATO, as it exists today, does not preclude the desirability or even the necessity of extending its scope beyond purely military matters. As Ruth C. Lawson has pointed out, there is little hope for reliable military collaboration among countries ohat do not succeed in attaining a reasonable degree of harmony between their political aims and policies. Cyprus, Suez, and Algeria are symptomatic of the problems NATO faces in the political field.
Budgeting for the United Nations
Authors: Mangone Gerard J. , Srivastava Anand K.
Published: May 2009

Since its inception twelve years ago the UN has never handled very large sums of money by comparison with national budgets. Nevertheless, the small contributions have often been given grudgingly by member states with mumblings of “waste” about the personnel and the programs. In our view such innuendoes are unfounded. But we think there is room for improvement in the presentation of the budgets of the UN and its specialized agencies, particularly by developing appropriation categories which tend to indicate and measure the performance of the Organization.
The Executive Head: An Essay on Leadership in International Organization
Authors: Cox Robert W.
Published: May 2009

The quality of executive leadership may prove to be the most critical single determinant of the growth in scope and authority of international organization. Now sufficiently long and varied to allow a comparative approach, the history of international organization may provide elements for a theory of leadership. This essay is but a preliminary effort in that direction. It is concerned not only with how the executive head protects and develops his position as top man but also with how, by doing so, he may be the creator of a new (if yet slender) world power base.
Collective responses to R&D problems in Western Europe: 1955–1958 and 1968–1973
Authors: Nau Henry R.
Published: May 2009

Collective responses to technology-related international problems may differ in terms of organizational outcomes (new, modified, or no organizations). Some of this difference may be accounted for by contrasting objectives and capabilities of major actors. Actors may emphasize different dimensions of the policy setting, possess varying amounts of resources and information to affect that setting, and accordingly prefer alternative responses. Possibilities of this sort are examined empirically in two separate, chronological periods of Western European responses to collective R&D problems. In the first period, major actors stressed different dimensions of the policy setting, possessed unequal resources, and responded to the situation by the creation of new organizations (Euratom and ENEA); in the second, they stressed the same dimensions of the policy setting, possessed roughly equal capabilities, and decidedly resisted the creation of new organizations. The different outcomes suggest that stratification of perceptions and capabilities, emphasizing complementarity, may be more conducive to organizational creativity than similarity of perceptions and capabilities, emphasizing competition.
In search of an ocean regime: The negotiations in the General Assembly's Seabed Committee 1968–1970
Authors: Lφvald Johan Ludivk
Published: May 2009

This study deals with the opening phase of the UN negotiations concerning the future international regime for ocean space. It seeks to establish how the technological and economic capabilities of member nations condition the manner and style of negotiation, the definition of national objectives, and the growth of attitudes and expectations with regard to such a regime. By the end of the 1968–70 period expectations about the future international regime had narrowed noticeably. Yet, for long-range tactical reasons many delegations were still holding out in anticipation of a new Law of the Sea Conference. The original Maltese seabed proposal envisaged a comprehensive international regime. In general, developing countries favored such a solution in the beginning, while industrialized countries preferred an intermediate solution. Eventually the Maltese proposal and the negotiating situation inadvertently set off a wave of claims for various forms of national jurisdiction. This meant that the emphasis at the end was more on the rights of the coastal states and less on the capacity of the world community to deal collectively with the future of ocean space.
Toward mutual accountability in the nonterrestrial realms
Authors: Brown Seyom , Fabian Larry L.
Published: May 2009

The inherited international regimes for the ocean, outer space, and the weather-based largely on the principles of open access and free use-are inappropriate to the emerging needs in these realms for efficient and equitable allocation of resources and for conflict management. Neither a substantially greater exercise by national governments of management authority, nor a marginalist approach to increasing the authority of functionally-specific international institutions will suffice. A major commitment to expand and strengthen processes of international accountability among the users of these realms is required. Institutional targets for the mid-1980s should include a comprehensive ocean authority; an outer space projects agency; a global weather and climate organization; and an international scientific commission on global resources and ecologies. Transitional strategies, of a marginal and functionally-specific nature, however, will be required in the meantime, directed toward internationalizing information on the nonterrestrial realms, drawing the relevant actors into consultative arrangements, and limiting current unilateralist trends.
Perspectives on the international relations of food
Authors: Hopkins Raymond F. , Puchala Donald J.
Published: May 2009

The international system of production, distribution and consumption of food is managed by states, corporations and international organizations. International organizations play minor roles in the food regime, principally as arenas for policy coordination among state bureaucracies and as agents for modest multilateral programs. All of these actors work within the framework of a set of norms, rules and practices that constitutes a global food regime. Currently, the regime is undergoing change. Growing demand for food, tighter connections among markets, and greater reliance on technology have increased the importance of international adjustments. American preponderance in shaping regime features and insuring food security through reserves has declined. The dramatic price rises and rationing of international food supplies that occurred during the “crisis” of 1973–74 exposed serious deficiencies in the existing regime. At least five world food problems—potential shortages, instability, insecurity, low productivity and malnutrition—continue as real or potential threats. To solve these problems the norms of the current regime that has existed since World War II are seriously under challenge. Re-evaluation and reform of the major principles characterizing the food regime are needed.
The politics of food scarcities in developing countries
Authors: Nicholson Norman K. , Esseks John D.
Published: May 2009

Barring the global catastrophe envisioned by the Club of Rome, poverty will prove a more intractable problem than low productivity in the Third World. Much greater attention will have to be paid to the distribution of income, jobs, and foodgrains in the future if increases in production are to actually reduce hunger. The failure of many countries to manage their food supplies adequately and to provide basic food security to their populations is explained both by an urban bias in planning and by the sheer administrative complications and costs of stabilizing the foodgrains markets. For many countries dependency was politically easier. Major efforts to increase basic food production are essential in most developing countries, but the political adjustments associated with that decision may be difficult. The institutional patterns required to induce an agricultural revolution will challenge existing patterns of power and social stratification.
World hunger: a structural approach
Authors: Christensen Cheryl
Published: May 2009

Chronic hunger is rooted in poverty and radically unequal distributions of income and assets, within and across countries. In market or quasi-market systems, the distribution of income and assets structures both food consumption patterns and food production systems. Radical inequality leads to structures which make it difficult to eliminate hunger, both because they increase the quantity of food needed to do so and because they support production structures in which the poor are “marginalized.” The effect of radical inequality is to severely limit the usefulness of “market mechanisms” as efficient instruments for reducing hunger. Marginal adjustments of existing food markets are unlikely to make any real progress in ending chronic hunger. Broadly based development and/or changes in the structuring mechanisms supported by market economies are necessary.
Institutional dimensions of the malnutrition problem
Authors: Austin James E.
Published: May 2009

The roots of malnutrition are found in economics, education, agriculture, and health. This multiple etiology requires that approaches to the problem engage many different institutions. These organizations can be viewed as constituting an International Nutrition Institutional Network. The functions of this system are collection and dissemination of information, provision of goods and services, financing, and coordination. Significant problems, however, have been identified in the performance of these functions. These are organizational: poor coordination, vague responsibility delineation, inadequate evaluation, people limitations, and internationalnational relationships. They are also political: policy vacuum, knowledge gaps, and priority conflicts. Unless these are rectified, the Network's effectiveness will remain severely limited.
World food institutions: a “liberal” view
Authors: Johnson D. Gale
Published: May 2009

World food institutions include the whole range of policies and programs that affect the production and distribution of food, including national programs as well as those of an international nature. Trade liberalization, both international and intranational, can contribute significantly to the expansion of food production. Unfortunately, recent suggestions, such as the Integrated Programme for Commodities, will result in increased trade barriers, a reduction in specialization of production and increased price instability. If there are appropriate policies—adequate incentives for farmers, increased support for research and available supplies of modern farm inputs—food production in the developing economies can be increased more rapidly than population. Food security in the developing countries could be increased significantly by a grain insurance program that supplied grain to meet all production shortfalls below trend level production. Such a program should be the major source of food aid to the developing countries in order to avoid disincentives to local farmers.
Negotiating a treaty on environmental modification warfare: the convention on environmental warfare and its impact upon arms control negotiations
Authors: Juda Lawrence
Published: May 2009

The technology of warfare is in a constant state of flux. In recent years weather modification activities have been employed by military forces and other methods of environmental manipulation have been contemplated for military use. The development of the 1976 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques and the negotiations in the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) which culminated in its adoption are focused upon. To date this treaty has generated little in the way of commentary in either the press or in academic journals. The treaty and the politics surrounding its drafting and adoption are considered and shown to be quite instructive on disarmament politics and the operation of the CCD. Further, they reflect the fact that the North-South polarity found in a number of issue areas in world politics is increasingly evident in the field of disarmament and arms control.
Washington and Bonn: dimensions of change in bilateral relations
Authors: Johnson Paul M.
Published: May 2009

In recent years efforts to account for changing patterns of alliance relationships have incorporated a growing number of insights and propositions derived from the analysis of “global interdependence.” These efforts have been complicated, on the one hand, by a lack of precision in providing operational definitions of the independent variables and, at a more fundamental level, by considerable ambiguity with respect to those types of changes which may be best explained in terms of these variables.

An analysis of Washington-Bonn relations reveals a reasonably coherent pattern of changes with regard to four specific aspects of the relationship: 1) the nature of the alliance agenda; 2) the structure of the relationship (i.e. the characteristic distribution of influence between alliance partners); 3) the operative procedural norms which regulate bilateral bargaining and negotiation; and 4) the institutional arrangements which have evolved for the coordination of alliance policy.
Concorde—bird of harmony or political albatross: an examination in the context of British foreign policy
Authors: May Annabelle
Published: May 2009

Increasingly, technological decisions are entering into the political arena. They alter the environment in which policy must operate. It is claimed that British foreign policy since the Second World War has been dominated by unrealizable goals. Britain has been preoccupied by the debate about her world-role, a debate which was in itself the product of anachronistic values and assumptions. The Concorde project was the manifestation of a desire to maintain Britain's position as a leading aeronautical power. The aircraft industry faithfully reflects the pattern of government interests and influence. But Concorde was also intended to emphasize what the British government felt to be changing relationships with the United States and Europe. However, in “modernized” states, the boundaries between foreign and domestic policies are increasingly blurred. Although this phenomenon may result in interdependence at an international level, the formation of transnational links can restrict the power of sovereign states. It can also inhibit the domestic process of democratic control. While international burden-sharing may place unforeseen pressures on the structures of government, the momentum for technological development is often so strong that it becomes impossible to resist. While visible technology can be a potent instrument of prestige, it must also respond to needs at a market level in order to be successful. Concorde has conspicuously failed to do this.
U.S. black newspaper coverage of the UN and U.S. white coverage, 1948–1975
Authors: Petersen Keith S.
Published: May 2009

An analysis of UN coverage in sample years between 1948 and 1975 by five representative black U.S. newspapers as compared with theNew York Timesand, to a lesser extent, theChicago Tribuneshows that UN coverage by the black press since 1961 has declined, as it has for the white press, but that the decline in black press coverage is not only less sharp but has also been somewhat reversed in recent years. Patterns of coverage differ: greater priority is accorded in the black press to Africa and Asia and more emphasis is placed on personalities, especially on black Americans at the United Nations. Comparisons of black press coverage with UN “busyness” and with the differentials of support for the UN that have been manifested over the years in both black and white public opinion reveal no clear correlations.
International organization and the theory of property rights
Authors: Conybeare John A. C.
Published: May 2009

A specter haunts the world's bureaucrats: the specter of small government. Skepticism about the expanding role of government in most industrial nations has encouraged political economists to go back to some fundamental questions about what we really need government to do for us, whether it be for reasons of efficiency or equity. The aim of this paper is to suggest that some of the theories attacking “big” government are equally applicable in the realm of international organization (IO).
Sphere of flying: the politics of international aviation
Authors: Jönsson Christer
Published: May 2009

International civil aviation appears to be a pertinent yet largely overlooked issuearea to study in the light of recent discussions about the changing international system. In this article the evolution of the international aviation system from its inception early in this century is analyzed in terms of regime changes. Three different regime periods are delineated, and possible explanations of the observed regime changes are discussed. On the face of it, the development of international aviation seems to conform with the overall global trend toward complex interdependence. Yet it also raises a number of questions concerning interdependence that might be addressed in the study of other issue-areas. These concern the links between politico-economic issue-areas and military security, the degree of harmony or conflict associated with interdependence, and the role of states generally—and the United States in particular—under conditions of complex interdependence.
Center-periphery interaction patterns: the case of Arab visits, 1946–1975
Authors: Thompson William R.
Published: May 2009

Eight generalizations are extracted from two partially competing perspectives (Johan Galtung's “feudal interaction” and Jorge Dominguez's “international fragmentation”) on center-periphery interaction patterns. Seven of these generalizations are tested by examining head of state, governmental and ministerial visits to and from the Arab world between 1946 and 1975. Neither perspective is fully supported or disconfirmed by the data. Dominguez's emphases on limited resources and local problems, however, which lead in turn to relatively high intra-subsystemic interaction between peripheral actors and changing center-periphery patterns, appear to provide a more accurate analytical base than does the static model, with its emphasis on high levels of asymmetry and concentration, advanced by Galtung. Further tests of the two perspectives will be necessary in order to assess fully the geographical scope and the type of interaction patterns covered by these diachronic findings.
World shipping, UNCTAD, and the New International Economic Order
Authors: Juda Lawrence
Published: May 2009

The New International Economic Order (N1EO) seeks fundamental change in international relations. World shipping has experienced substantial pressure for reforms associated with NIEO goals: controversy focuses around the operation of the liner conferences, the use of flags of convenience, which retain beneficial ownership in developed nations, and the demands of developing countries for a major share in the carriage of their imports and exports. UNCTAD, and in particular its Shipping Division headed by Adib al-Jadir, has become increasingly active in world shipping. The reforms urged through UNCTAD will have a significant impact on the fleets, maritime practices, and interests of the developed world. This study examines UNCTAD's aims in world shipping–the policies being urged, the factors under consideration, and the trends emerging from the operation of UNCTAD. It further examines developed states' attempts to shape, and their reactions to, UNCTAD policies, and the interests perceived to be at stake in the current debate on world shipping.