Over the past century, Germany has repeatedly attempted to use trade as a tool of foreign policy vis-à-vis Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Against the background of continual German economic superiority, this article analyzes Germany's ability to apply trade leverage in terms of four other factors: the nature of the prevailing international trade regime, government views of trade leverage as a tool of statecraft, the degree of German state autonomy in setting trade policies, and the availability of an effective bureaucratic mechanism for controlling German imports and exports. The historical record demonstrates that beyond economic superiority, the application of trade leverage requires a permissive international trade regime, state acceptance of trade-based economic statecraft, an autonomous domestic regime, and a rigorous trade control bureaucracy. Surprisingly, this conjunction of factors, as they applied to Eastern Europe, occurred during both the Nazi period and the early years of the Federal Republic. The article closes by pointing out how two important factors—the politicized nature of the East-West trade regime and the Federal Republic's high degree of state autonomy in setting Eastern trade policy–are being eroded by political and economic change in Eastern Europe.

It will cause little controversy in the spring of 1975 to observe that the world is in a profound political and economic crisis, or that interdependence is a palpable and often unpalatable fact. Conflict over formerly latent issues is increasingly evident, as governments try desperately to cope with the effects of other governments' policies, as in the case of oil, or with resource shortages, as in the case of food. Many of the problems from which such issues arise–including also environmental degradation, inflation, and recession–have immediate impacts on people's daily lives. Unlike traditional foreign policy issues, they are not separate from domestic politics, and experienced largely through the mass media, but rather encountered daily on the job and at the market. Domestic and foreign policies are closely intertwined, and important domestic interests are threatened by events abroad. It is becoming clear that ties between national economies can transmit economic evils as well as economic goods.

Sectoral analyses reveal an emerging tension between a global market and an anarchic political system and oblige scholars to examine the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between states and markets. This analysis of commercial-class aircraft manufacturing, a strategic industry, demonstrates how corporate behavior affects political choices and vice versa. It suggests that corporate and political policymaking is a messy process: first, policymakers must respond to multiple and often conflicting demands, from both domestic and international constituencies; second, they are influenced by a number of variables, including ideology, interest group activity, consequences of previous policies, perceptions about their state's position in the international system, and available knowledge about how to realize specific goals. Sets of competing variables which act as centripetal and centrifugal forces are identified and analyzed in terms of how they have impelled corporations to seek transnational production arrangements. Three prototypical structures of international production are delineated, and the potential consequences for states and corporations participating in each model are discussed. The key objectives of the article are to encourage the use of multivariate analyses to explain change in the international system and to provoke further debate about the appropriate policies to pursue to achieve global economic competitiveness across a number of industry sectors.

The article is an empirical study of the political processes leading to the agreement on the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that was reached in October 1970 at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Section I of the article sets out the triangular interests that had to reach agreement among developed countries, among developing countries, and between developed and developing countries. Section II poses the problem of the article: How did the UNCTAD secretariat contribute to the political process that resolved the three-dimensional disagreements, if only on a partial basis? The argument of the article is that sustained institutionalized pressure exerted through the UNCTAD secretariat did make a difference in influencing the policy outcomes on GSP. Certain results were achieved through UNCTAD organizational processes–secretariat ideology, Prebisch's leadership, and pragmatic group bargaining–that could not have been achieved through other means.

In the metalworking and chemical industries of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, the ownership structure of firms, their product sector, and propensity to obtain technology through licensing are closely associated. Foreign firms cluster in industrial sectors with complex and volatile technologies, in which their technological advantages permit the exaction of monopoly rents. Ownership structure and product sector, as well as firm size, are related to the firm's decision to obtain technology by licensing rather than by generating it autonomously or obtaining it through other means. Ownership structure, product sector, and licensing appear to interact with choice of machinery imports and research and development activities in such a way as to produce a “technological dependence syndrome” in which opportunities for “learning by doing” are consistently missed.

It has frequently been asserted that the financial problem of the United Nations is, in reality, a political problem. This proposition contains enough truth to serve us well, provided it is used not to dispose of the problem but to introduce serious consideration of it. Properly conceived, the political emphasis does not entail the denial of the meaningfulness and significance of the financial issue, but rather suggests the nature of the context within which that issue must be examined, and proposed solutions must be evaluated. Without an understanding of the political background of the fiscal difficulties of the United Nations and the political determinants of its future role in world affairs, one cannot deal intelligently with the problems and prospects of the Organization's treasury.

While nonproliferation is no longer in the focus of international attention in the aftermath of the Afghanistan crisis, the problem of checking the spread of nuclear weapons was the subject of an intense controversy between the United States and Europe throughout the 1970s.

Beginning with the Ford administration policy and continuing with the new Carter nonproliferation policy, a major nuclear controversy opposed the American and European nuclear suppliers.

The first area of controversy was the question of technological transfers to the Third World and the conditions for such transfers (embargoes on sensitive technology, IAEA safeguards). The controversy also spread into the area of the plutonium economy—i.e., breeders and reprocessing. On both of these questions, most of the problems raised in the 1970s are still open despite some rapprochement between European and American positions. Major points of disagreement remain in the aftermath of the INFCE: full scope safeguards, the question of breeder reactors, and plutonium economy. The major uncertainty for the future will be whether nuclear energy as a whole will remain in the present state of depression or whether nuclear programs throughout the world will grow again.

International arbitration is a distinctive feature of both contemporary international politics and the ancient world. Explanations of arbitration in the international relations literature generally posit that states engage in arbitration to mitigate the effects of competition in an anarchical system, or that the practice of arbitration reflects democratic norms. However, an examination of arbitration during the paradigmatic case of the Hellenistic period (338–90 bce) casts doubt on the existing literature. Hierarchy rather than anarchy better characterizes the political context in which arbitration took place: the Greeks often organized themselves into alliances or leagues in which a hegemon dominated decision making, or into federal states with a common foreign policy. This hierarchical setting was a necessary condition for international arbitration where the practice of arbitration was a tool to legitimize hierarchical powers. We assemble an original data set of Hellenistic arbitrations, and use qualitative comparative analysis to show that hierarchy was almost always a necessary condition for international arbitration. Process-tracing of arbitration under three political orders—hegemonic kingdoms in the Greek world, Greek federations, and the Roman Empire—shows that arbitration as a particular means of dispute resolution was used as an ideological device to build and legitimize international order. We then analyze the contemporary record, finding a role for hierarchy in modern international arbitration.

At the present time the spectrum of views on the probabilities for major change in the present political economy of North-South relations is very broad. Some scholars predict a significant increase in the bargaining strength of the developing countries; others suggest that the asymmetrical interdependences in today's political economy are unlikely to produce major alterations in North-South bargaining power in the near future. This article examines some of the empirical and theoretical evidence which seems most relevant to the outcome of the present conflict between the Third World and the industrialized states and concludes that arguments predicting major structural changes in. North-South economic relations may have overstated their case.

A conceptual framework for the analysis of global political change is presented and illustrated with examples drawn from the Cold War. The most important issues on an agenda, the critical issues, go through identifiable stages: genesis, crisis, ritualization, dormancy, decision making, and authoritative allocation. The effects of the different stages on behavior of international actors is examined in a preliminary fashion, and a theoretical rationale is offered. Each stage, treated in detail, relates to the others in terms of differences in behavior associated with each stage, the evolving of relationships among actors, and the resolution of issues. The concluding section elaborates the research implications.

Whereas, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Why and when do developing countries file trade disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO)? Although financial conditions have long been considered an important driver of trade policy, they have been largely absent from the literature on trade disputes. We argue that developing country governments bring more trade dispute to the WTO when overvalued real exchange rates put exporters at a competitive disadvantage. This dynamic is most prevalent in countries where large foreign currency debt burdens discourage nominal currency devaluations that would otherwise serve exporters’ interests. Our findings provide an explanation for differences in dispute participation rates among developing countries, and also suggest a new link between exchange rate regimes and trade policy.

Whether or not less developed countries can better realize their economic aspirations by strengthening their ties with developed countries will remain in dispute as long as there are rich and poor countries. Dispute will be particularly sharp while the main instruments of such interconnection are identifiable institutions like the multinational corporation. It is easier to map the growth of the multinational corporation than to assess its consequences, but the need for an assessment cannot be ignored. As this essay's subtitle suggests, my main concern is consideration of arguments which are critical of the role of the multinational corporation.

The historically unstable world trade in sugar has long stimulated multilateral efforts to stabilize sugar prices. In the negotiations leading to the International Sugar Agreement (ISA) of 1977, both producers and consumers were willing to make short-term concessions in the interest of reaching an accord that would benefit all in the long run–a pattern that has hardly been typical of North-South bargaining in general. But the ISA has failed to achieve its goal of more stable sugar prices in the years since its enactment. This failure is primarily due not to shortcomings in the agreement itself but rather to a major expansion of production in the only important sugar exporter that failed to ratify the ISA, the European Community. The ISA is important not only in its own right but also because it offers a good example of the promise–and the problems–of international commodity agreements in bringing about more stable and equitable relations between North and South.

The recent growth in Italian Communist party (PCI) influence on national policy making has been accompanied by a reversal of the party's traditional opposition to Italian participation in NATO and the European Communities. Why? Most fundamentally, this reversal is due to Italy's increasingly irreversible involvement in the network of economic interdependence that links the Western economies. PCI leaders have come to recognize and accept the political consequences of interdependence. Other important factors contributing to the policy shift are: 1) changes in Italian public opinion that made opposition to Italy's Western alignment increasingly costly for the PCI; and 2) constraints imposed by the PCI's need to seek alliances with non-Communists, both in Italy and elsewhere in Western Europe. Serious problems lie ahead for Italy's relations with her allies, but these problems would only be exacerbated by an apocalyptic assessment by Western leaders of the PCI's foreign policy line.

An analysis of 344 selected votes in the four major issue areas in the UN General Assembly from 1971 to 1977 examines the question whether China has fulfilled its promise to support the Third World and oppose the superpowers. The findings are: 1) China was much more favorable to the Third World than to the West in this period and more supportive of the developing nations than of the Communist bloc on all except colonial issues; 2) China voted with the Third World more often than with the Communist nations, even when colonial issues were included; 3) China was least friendly to the United States on the majority of issues and in all years; and 4) the Soviet Union was the most anti-China nation in the Communist world, and of the four permanent members of the Security Council, Soviet voting agreement with China was the third lowest on political and security issues in the overall period and was often the lowest on arms control and disarmament. Thus at least within the context of UN voting, China has succeeded in developing its pro-Third World and anti-superpower position, particularly on economic and security issues.

In a recent article, Stephanie Neuman examines several critical factors that separate developing countries into arms producers and arms nonproducers. She ranks countries according to a weighted index of military production capability (derived from length of production, production capacity, and technical capabilities) and also according to the following seven socioeconomic indicators: population, land size, size of military, gross national product (GNP), GNP per capita, number of professional and technical workers, and number of industrial workers. She computes correlation coefficients (Kendall's tau) by region (Latin America, South Asia, and the Far East) and for twenty-six arms producers worldwide.

In many ways the study of international integration is in what Thomas Kuhn has called the pre-paradigm stage of the development of science. This stage is characterized by disagreement on the entities to be studied and the definitions, concepts, and indicators to be employed. Controversy is widespread even on the simplest of issues and, what is more discouraging, this controversy does not take place in a theoretical-methodological context which facilitates its resolution. There is a general lack of common standards by which to evaluate knowledge, decision-rules to interpret evidence, and criteria to measure progress. Thus, what constitutes advance for one school may mean retreat for another, and efforts to exchange views and harmonize aims frequently only serve to further define existing cleavages. Given this disagreement on broad philosophical issues it should not be surprising that research efforts and presentations of “evidence” have had little compelling impact in altering theoretical convictions. It is also no accident that the two most promising efforts to date are not presentations of data but are attempts to fashion a generally acceptable framework within which to evaluate evidence. Leon Lindberg has urged the adoption of a systems perspective which would harmonize a variety of research efforts and would, as well, make findings roughly comparable. Joseph Nye has suggested that we must “disaggregate” the concept of integration before we can meaningfully answer the important questions facing us. I have already indicated how complementary Lindberg's and Nye's suggestions are, and I feel that implementation of their suggestions would aid in making research findings touch base with one another and thus impart to evidence its proper multiplying effect.