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Consensus or compliance? Foreign-policy change and external dependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Bruce E. Moon
Bruce E. Moon
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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Abstract

The foreign-policy behavior of weak states, conventional wisdom holds, is largely determined by a process of bargaining with a dominant state. Compliance with the dominant state's preferences is viewed as necessary to the maintenance of economic exchange relations that benefit the weak state. Evidence for such a theory has been found in cross-sectional correlations of aid and trade with UN voting. However, such empirical studies have ignored alternative explanations, overlooked elements of the statistical record, and failed to examine the logic of the bargaining model. The assumptions of the bargaining model are vulnerable to criticism; an alternative model emphasizes multiple constraints on the behavior of both the strong and the weak nation in an asymmetrical dyad. Reanalysis of the data uncovers strong evidence of an explanation for foreign-policy continuity rooted in dependency. Dependency permeates and transforms the political system of dependent nations, thus bringing about constrained consensus rather than compliance. Furthermore, the data provide strong evidence for an explanation of foreign-policy change in both nations that centers on regime change, not on bargaining with an external actor.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , Spring 1985 , pp. 297 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1985

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References

1. Most prominent among them are Richardson, Neil, “Political Compliance and U.S. Trade Dominance,” American Political Science Review 70 (1976), pp. 1098–1109CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richardson, , Foreign Policy and Economic Dependence (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Richardson, and Kegley, Charles, “Trade Dependence and Foreign Policy Compliance: A Longitudinal Analysis,” International Studies Quarterly 24 (1980), pp. 191–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armstrong, Adrienne, “The Political Consequences of Economic Dependence,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 25, 3 (1981), pp. 401–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ray, James, “Dependence, Political Compliance, and Economic Performance: Latin America and Eastern Europe,” in Kegley, and McGowan, Pat, eds., The Political Economy of Foreign Policy Behavior (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981)Google Scholar.

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3. For a full, theoretical treatment of this effect and relevant data, see Singer, Marshall, Weak States in a World of Powers (New York: Free Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

4. The distinction amounts to the difference between “dependence,” which chiefly concerns power relationships between autonomous actors, and “dependency,” which deals with the multiple implications of the incorporation of the national economy into the global political economy, including the demise of autonomy for national actors. See Caparaso, James, “Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System: A Structural and Behavioral Analysis,” International Organization 32, 1 (1978), pp. 13–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Raymond Duvall, “Dependence and Dependencia Theory: Notes toward Precision of Concept and Argument,” ibid., pp. 51–78, for a discussion of the different traditions.

5. We know that the Reagan administration—one less interested in the United Nations than any since World War II-does monitor key UN votes. See Bernstein, Richard, “The United Nations versus the United States,” New York Times Magazine, 22 01 1984Google Scholar.

6. Where alternative measures exist, they are highly correlated with UN voting but do not tap position taking on global issues, e.g., IGO memberships, diplomatic exchanges, personnel visits, treaties, events interactions, etc.

7. Throughout this article, “regime” refers to the particular leadership of a given nation and not to the network of global rules and institutions that make up an “international regime.”

8. See the documentation in Mason, E., Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar; Westwood, A., Foreign Aid in a Foreign Policy Framework (Washington: Brookings, 1966)Google Scholar; Kay, David, “Instruments of Influence in the United Nations Political Process,” in Kay, , ed., The United Nations Political System (New York: Wiley, 1967)Google Scholar; and Keohane, Robert, “Political Influence in the General Assembly,” International Conciliation no. 557 (1966)Google Scholar.

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11. Ibid.

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15. These shared perspectives are a major theme in Singer, Weak States, and are the basis of the “core of the periphery” imagery associated with Galtung, Johan, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research 13 (1971), pp. 81–117, and much of the dependencia literatureCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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17. Richardson, , Foreign Policy and Economic Dependence, pp. 64, 70Google Scholar. Cf. Armstrong, , “Political Consequences of Economic Dependence,” p. 401Google Scholar.

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20. Most dependency analysis treats the community of interest as illusory, short-term, or applicable only to elites, when in fact the relationship is one of exploitation. At a minimum, dependencia considers the benefits highly asymmetrical. Policy makers, however, though wary of the effects of dependency, seem to accept the inevitability, if not always the beneficence, of the transactions.

21. See especially Singer, Weak Slates.

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23. See Singer, Weak States, for both the general argument and considerable data on several facets of this syndrome.

24. Galtung, “Structural Theory of Imperialism”; Sunkel, Osvaldo, “Transnational Capitalism and National Disintegration in Latin America,” Social and Economic Studies 22 (1973), p. 146Google Scholar; and Cardoso, Fernando and Faletto, Enzo, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 140Google Scholar.

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28. See, for example, Payer, Cheryl, The Debt Trap: The IMF and the Third World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and Hayter, Theresa, Aid as Imperialism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971)Google Scholar.

29. For a treatment of the constellation of forces involved in the Jamaican case, see Stone, Carl, Democracy and Clientelism in Jamaica (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1980)Google Scholar.

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32. Votes were considered near-unanimous if 90% of the total yes and no votes were cast on the winning side. This procedure is similar to that used in most of the previous literature.

33. Committee One (Political and Security Questions) is primarily an East-West forum, whereas committees Three (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural Questions) and Four (Trusteeship Questions) are more often North-South forums. See Moon, “International System in Transition.”

34. All previous longitudinal studies have made the fatal error of treating only the raw voting agreement scores. Consequently, they have made highly erroneous inferences about foreignpolicy change.

35. The labels are illustrative only. The groups are less geographically homogeneous than the labels suggest. See Moon, “International System in Transition,” and Moon, Bruce E., “The Foreign Policy of the Dependent State,” International Studies Quarterly 27 (1983), pp. 315–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. In all cases but two, the group with the closest mean U.S. agreement also minimized longitudinal variation. The two exceptions were nations that underwent a massive change in alignment during the period, in effect moving from one group to another.

37. The aggregated categories used in the longitudinal analyses were military grants, economic grants, economic loans, total loans, and total grants. In the cross-sectional analyses, these were supplemented with PL480 loans, PL480 grants, Peace Corps, Export-Import Bank, and Security Supporting Assistance.

38. All nations with sufficiently long time series of UN voting were included. Most of the nations included had twenty-five yearly time points.

39. Where regime change occurred during a UN session, the regime in power for the majority of votes in that session was credited with the entire session. Although this is an imperfect procedure, it results in a highly conservative test of the regime-centric model, since measurement error of this sort should artificially diminish the differences between regimes. Similarly, some regimes whose tenure was too short for one to be confident that they could bring about foreignpolicy change were not coded independently. Instead, they were lumped with an adjacent regime or with the “omitted” category necessary for the dummy regression. This too should provide a conservative test, since it tends to increase artificially the “within-group” variance.

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42. Moon, “Foreign Policy of the Dependent State.”

43. Richardson, “Economic Dependence”; Armstrong, “Political Consequences of Economic Dependence.”

44. Simon, Herbert, “Notes on the Observation and Measurement of Power,” Journal of Politics 15 (1953), p. 507CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richardson and Kegley, “Trade Dependence.”

45. Moon, “Foreign Policy of the Dependent State.”

46. Nearly all nations were represented by 28 yearly data points from 1946 through 1975, with the one-vote 19th UN session omitted.

47. Moon, “Foreign Policy of the Dependent State.”

48. Rosenberg, Stacy Marcus, “The Impact of Dependency Relations on Electoral Outcomes in Dependent Nations,” mimeo, Northwestern University (Evanston, III., 1983)Google Scholar; Moon, “Foreign Policy of the Dependent State.”

49. To compensate for differences in population size and to correct for severe skew in the raw data, the aid measures are computed on a per capita basis and are logarithmically transformed.

50. McKinlay and Mughan, Aid and Arms.