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Compatibility and Consensus: A Proposal for the Conceptual Linkage of External and Internal Dimensions of Foreign Policy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Wolfram F. Hanrieder
Wolfram F. Hanrieder*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

The relative intractablility of the international environment poses a problem for the foreign policy of all nations. Purpose and power meet with cross-purpose and countervailing power, and most foreign policy projects face external restraints that the makers of policy can neglect only at the risk of failure. Foreign policy—the more or less coordinated strategy with which institutionally designated decision-makers seek to manipulate the international environment—generally meets with tenacious resistance, if not insuperable obstacles.

To regard foreign policy and statecraft from this perspective, however, implies a good deal of determinism. In its more extreme analytical applications, this viewpoint reduces the pursuit of foreign policy goals to a contest between statesman and environment that is already settled by the insurmountable restrictions of the international “system.” Nations are implicitly delegated to play out the roles that the international system has “assigned” to its “actors” to maintain system stability or equilibrium. Domestic political variables are largely neglected in this analytical perspective. Foreign policy aspirations are assessed primarily in terms of whether a nation has adequately “internalized” system “rules”—that is to say, whether a polity has adjusted to the contingencies of the international system, which seems to move toward a preordained historical or analytical telos. The strictures of necessity, imposed by the international environment, take analytical precedence over considerations of preferences and the possibility of choice.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , December 1967 , pp. 971 - 982
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1967

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful for research support given me by the Center of International Studies of Princeton University. The concepts proposed here are applied in my study West German Foreign Policy, 1949–1963: International Pressure and Domestic Response (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967).

References

1 See, for example, Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley, 1957)Google Scholar; Liska, George, International Equilibrium (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, Morton A., Burns, Arthur L., and Quandt, Richard M., “Theoretical Analysis of the ‘Balance of Power,’” Behavioral Science, 5 (07 1960), 240–252CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ash, Maurice A., “An Analysis of Power, with Special Reference to International Politics,” World Politics, 3 (01 1951), 218–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, Snyder, Richard C., Bruck, H. W., and Sapin, Burton, Decision-Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954)Google Scholar, and the early essay by Snyder, , “The Nature of Foreign Policy,” Social Science, 27 (04 1952), 61–69Google Scholar; Klineberg, Otto, Tensions Affecting International Understanding (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1950).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Harold, and Sprout, Margaret suggest that “In analyzing a particular outcome, performance, or state of affairs, it is generally possible to identify certain elements of the total environment that appear to be strategic (that is, very immediate and important). These specific elements constitute the operational environment of the actor in that situation. The operational environment (the factors which an outside observer judges to be relevant and significant in explaining an event or state of affairs) should be distinguished from the environment as it appears to the actor in the situation. His image of reality we shall call his psychological environment”: Foundations of International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1962), 46–47.Google Scholar “How one draws the line between unit and milieu also has practical as well as purely analytic consequences, depending on whether the focus is on psychological behavior or on achievement or accomplishment as measured in terms of capabilities“: The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs, with Special Reference to International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 41 (italics in original).

For a trenchant examination of the international and national levels of analysis and their methodological implications, see Singer, J. David, “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” World Politics, 14 (10 1961), 77–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A “three-level” analysis is presented by Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959)Google Scholar, and a “six-level” set of variables is proposed by North, Robert C.et al., Content Analysis: A Handbook with Applications for the Study of International Crisis (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1963), 5–7Google Scholar; see also Wolfers, Arnold, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962), chapter 3Google Scholar; Liska, George, “Continuity and Change in International Systems,” World Politics, 16 (10 1963), 118–136, esp. pp. 126ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ramsoy, Odd, Social Groups as System and Subsystem (New York: Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Aron, Raymond, Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), esp. pp. 227 ff.Google Scholar For admirable studies that combine both systemic and subsystemic perspectives, see Rosecrance, Richard N., Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963)Google Scholar, and Bozeman, Adda B., Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

The “level-of-analysis” problem not only is an issue in international relations and the social sciences, but poses searching questions in physics, philosophy, and linguistics, to mention just a few fields of inquiry. Cf. Lerner, Daniel (ed.), Parts and Wholes (New York: Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar; see especially the Introduction and the contributions by Edward Purcell, Ernest Nagel, and Roman Jakobson.

4 See Hanrieder, Wolfram F., “Actor Objectives and International Systems,” Journal of Politics, 27 (02 1965), 109–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfers, Arnold, “The Actors in International Politics,” in Wolfers, , op. cit., 3–24.Google Scholar

5 For a full treatment of this issue and a critical review of the relevant literature, see Rosenau, James N., “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Farrell, R. Barry (ed.), Approaches to Comparative and International Politics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), 27–92.Google Scholar

6 See Mosely, Philip E., “Research on Foreign Policy,” Brookings Dedication Lectures, Research for Public Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1961), 43–72, esp. p. 50Google Scholar; Good, Robert E., “State-Building as a Determinant of Foreign Policy in the New States,” in Martin, Laurence W. (ed.), Neutralism and Nonalignment (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), 3–12Google Scholar; Riggs, Fred, “The Theory of Developing Politics,” World Politics, 16 (10 1963), 147–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarScott, Andrew, The Revolution in Statecraft (New York: Random House, 1965).Google Scholar

7 See Haas's, Ernst B.Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar, his “Regionalism, Functionalism, and Universal International Organization,” World Politics, 8 (01 1956), 238–263CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar. See also Lindberg, Leon, The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., Consensus Formation in the Council of Europe (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Amitai Etzioni, “The Dialectics of Supranational Unification,” this Review, 56 (December 1962), 927–935, and his “The Epigénesis of Political Communities at the International Level,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (01 1963), 407–421CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deutsch, Karlet al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Hanrieder, Wolfram F., “International Organizations and In ternational Systems,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 10 (09 1966), 297–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Binder, Leonard, “The Middle East as a Subordinate International System,” World Politics, 10 (04 1958), 408–429CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brecher, Michael, “International Relations and Asian Studies: The Subordinate State System, of Southern Asia,” World Politics, 15 (01 1963), 213–235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Modelski, George, “International Relations and Area Studies: The Case of South-East Asia,” International Relations, 2 (04 1961), 143–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his The Communist International System (Princeton, N.J.: Center of International Studies, Research Monograph No. 9, 1960); Hodgkin, Thomas, “The New West African State System,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 31 (10 1961), 74–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walker, Richard L., The Multi-State System of Ancient China (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1953).Google Scholar

9 Herz, John H., International Politics in the Atomic Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), esp. ch. 6.Google Scholar See also Carr, Edward Hallett, Nationalism and After (London, New York: Macmillan, 1945)Google Scholar; Boulding, Kenneth, Conflict and Defense (New York: Harper, 1962).Google Scholar

10 See Rosenau, op. cit., pp. 63–65; Hanrieder, Wolfram F., “The International System: Bipolar or Multibloc?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 9 (09 1965), 299–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Rosenau, James N. (ed.), International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press, 1961)Google Scholar; see especially the Introduction and Part I.

12 In addition to the studies already mentioned, see the following: Riggs, Fred W., “International Relations as a Prismatic System,” World Politics, 14 (10 1961), 144–181CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chadwick F. Alger, “Comparison of Intranational and International Politics,” this Review, 57 (June 1963), 406–418; Masters, Roger D., “World Politics as a Primitive Political System,” World Politics, 16 (07 1964), 595–619CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russett, Bruce M., “Toward a Model of Competitive International Politics,” Journal of Politics, 25 (05 1963), 226–247CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rummel, Rudolph J., “Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within and Between Nations,” General Systems, 8 (1963), 1–50Google Scholar; Haas, Michael, Some Societal Correlates of International Political Behavior (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1964)Google Scholar; Tanter, Raymond, “Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within and Between Nations, 1958–1960,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 10 (03 1966), 41–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962). esp. ch. 9Google Scholar; Rosenau, James N. (ed.), International Aspects of Civil Strife (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eckstein, Harry (ed.), Internal War (New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Russett, Bruce M., Trends in World Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1965), esp. ch. 4Google Scholar; Klineberg, Otto, “Intergroup Relations and International Relations,” in Sherif, Muzafer (ed.), Intergroup Relations and Leadership: Approaches and Research in Industrial, Ethnic, Cultural, and Political Areas (New York: John Wiley, 1962), 174–176Google Scholar; Mack, Raymond W. and Snyder, Richard C., “The Analysis of Social Conflict—Toward, an Overview and Synthesis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (09 1957), 212–248CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Singer, J. David in his concluding remarks in Singer, (ed.), Human Behavior and International Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), 453–457.Google ScholarHammond, Paul Y., “The Political Order and the Burden of External Relations,” World Politics, 19 (04 1967), 443–464CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waltz, Kenneth N., Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The A merican and British Experience (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967)Google Scholar; Rosenau, James N. (ed.), Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press, 1967).Google Scholar

The timeliness of the question is also reflected in the international relations program of the 1966 APSA Convention which was devoted exclusively to the issue of national-international linkages (see below, notes 13, 17, and 21).

13 This appears to be a problem even when there is prior agreement on a highly structured, collaborative research agenda. The papers prepared for the international relations program of the 1966 APSA Convention were to follow, as much as possible, the agenda spelled out in James N. Rosenau's lead-off paper. Regardless of the intrinsic merit of the other contributions, it seems to me that only three of the eleven papers (Bernard C. Cohen, “National-International Linkages: Superpolities”; Robert T. Holt and John E. Turner, “National-International Linkages—Geographic Conditions: Insular Polities;” and Ole R. Holsti and John D. Sullivan, “Non-Conforming Bloc Polities: France and the People's Republic of China”) followed Rosenau's ingenious framework, even though a conference had preceded the writing of the papers.

14 Cf. Rosenau, James N., “The Functioning of International Systems,” Background, 7 (11 1963), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Verba, Sidney, “Simulation, Reality, and Theory in International Relations,” World Politics, 16 (04 1964), 490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Singer, for example, argues that such propositions, “representing different levels of analysis and couched in different frames of references … would defy theoretical integration; one may well be a corollary of the other, but they are not immediately combinable. A prior translation from one level to another must take place”: “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,” p. 91.

16 Haas, , Beyond the Nation-State, p. 74.Google Scholar For a symbolic-logical précis of isomorphism, see Carnap, Rudolf, Introduction to Symbolic Logic and Its Applications (New York: Dover, 1958), p. 75.Google Scholar

17 Some typical passages indicative of this line of argument are the following: Riggs advocates a “prismatic” model of a political system which occupies a conceptual middle position between a “fused” model (traditional agricultural and folk societies) and a “refracted” model (modern industrial societies), and whose “configurations would have points of correspondence in contemporary world affairs …” (op. cit., p. 181). The “wide range of intermediate positions having these [prismatic] characteristics …” rests on the possibility that “if there is any similarity between the basic political structure of government in a new state and in our international system, then perhaps models developed for one might shed light on the other. An analysis of the contemporary interstate system might help us understand the underdeveloped country, and models for politics in these countries may illuminate aspects of international relations” (ibid., 147–148). Alger (op. cit.), although critical of the Riggs model in some respects, accepts its basic assumption of isomorphism as valid and proceeds to apply to the international system the structural-functional categories formulated for developing societies by Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S. in The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960)Google Scholar. A similar argument is made by Masters, who views “world politics as a primitive political system.” He suggests that “Four elements common to politics within a number of primitive societies and international relations deserve mention: first, the absence of a formal government with power to judge and punish violations of law: second, the use of violence and ‘selfhelp’ by the members of the system to achieve their objectives and enforce obligations; third, the derivation of law and moral obligations either from custom or from explicit, particular bargaining relationships (i.e., the absence of a formal legislative body operating on the basis of—and making—general rules); and fourth, a predominant organizational principle which establishes political units serving many functions in the overall social system” (op. cit., p. 597). Masters contends, however, that although “there is a striking similarity between some primitive political systems and the modern international system … one cannot employ the polar opposites of ‘primitive’ and ‘modern’ or ‘functionally diffuse’ and ‘functionally specific’ as the basis of a comparative analysis of primitive political systems. Because primitive political systems vary enormously, one must explicitly distinguish the particular kind of primitive society which is supposed to present the greatest similarity to world politics” (ibid., 599). Russett goes even further in postulating structural isomorphisms between international and domestic politics, arguing that “The world could be thought of as a political system in which the major blocs are analogous to two parties that compete for the favor of the uncommitted voters. Each ‘party,’ including a leader and loyal party members of ‘partisans,’ tries to convince ‘voters’ that it is best able to fulfill their needs and respect their ethical prescriptions. At this stage of the analysis we shall consider a voter, whether neutral or partisan, as equivalent to the government of a particular nation” (Trends in World Politcs, p. 57).

The imaginative framework presented by James N. Rosenau in the paper “Toward the Study of National-International Linkages” also does not fully face up to the fundamental question of “cumulativeness” raised by Singer (“The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations”). Rosenau wants “to identify and analyze those recurrent sequences of behavior that originate on one side of the boundary between the two types of systems and that become linked to phenomena on the other side in the process of unfolding. Since the boundaries can be crossed by processes of perception and emulation as well as by direct interaction, allowance must be made for both continuous and intermittent sequences. Hence we will use a linkage as our basic unit of analysis, defining it as any recurrent sequence of behavior that originates in one system and is reacted to in another” (p. 12, italics in original). The concept of linkage, used as a basic unit of analysis and representing an interaction flow between the two systems, is by definition a “cumulative” concept that reaches into two different analytical environments. By focusing his basic unit of analysis on the process of interaction rather than on its source or target, Rosenau avoids parallelism; but the concept of linkage is intended to connect such an extensive and variegated array of phenomena (Rosenau mentions 3888 possible linkage combinations) that their cumulative quality is somewhat questionable.

18 Rosenau, , “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” p. 53Google Scholar; see also his Calculated Control as a Unifying Concept in the Study of International Politics and Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Center of International Studies, Research Monograph No. 15, 1963).

19 “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” 63–65 (italics in original).

20 Ibid., p. 66.

21 In his later paper (“Toward the Study of National-International Linkages”) Rosenau views this type of permeability—which I regard as a form of penetration—as the opposite of a penetrative process: “A penetrative process occurs when members of one polity serve as participants in the political processes of another. That is, they share with those in the penetrated polity the authority to allocate its values …. A reactive process is the contrary of a penetrative one: it is brought into being by recurrent and similar boundary-crossing reactions rather than by the sharing of authority…. The actors who initiate the output do not participate in the allocative activities of those who experience the input, but the behavior of the latter is nevertheless a response to behavior undertaken by the former.” (p. 12, italics in original).

22 Hanrieder, “Actor Objectives and International Systems.”

23 Almond and Coleman (eds.), op. cit.

24 It must be stressed again that the isomorphic attribute that allows this analytical coalescence is partial; it covers only the area of correspondence between compatibility and consensus in which both concepts are standards of feasibility or capability. Since the concept of consensus also includes psychological dimensions, the range of correspondence or overlap between compatibility and consensus is necessarily restricted. However, the concept of compatibility ultimately can also be tied to psychological-motivational sources. Compatibility assessments regarding goals and environment are based on the strictures and opportunities posed by the international system. These systemic contingencies are the product of the constellation of power and purpose in the international system—that is, they are the product not only of the physical capabilities of the major actors in the system but also of the purposeful behavior that motivates these actors. Hence, at both ends of a conceptual continuum—the microcosmic of a penetrated national system and the macrocosmic of the international system—capability aspects of compatibility blend into motivational aspects of consensus.

25 Die Staatsgewalt geht von den Besatzungsmächten aus (SPD pamphlet, n.d.), p. 3; see also Stambuck, George, American Military Forces Abroad: Their Impact on the Western State System (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

26 Disagreement over internal referents would not necessarily entail contesting the desirability or legitimacy of existing national institutions—it may be limited to advocating different sociopolitical and economic values within an accepted institutional framework; agreement on external referents would mean consensus on demands made of specifically identified members of the international system; agreement on systemic referents would indicate a common perception of international contingencies.

For a discussion of the relationship between the international system's stability and the predominant value referents of its members, see Hanrieder, , “Actor Objectives and International Systems,” 124–132.Google Scholar

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