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The international role of “domestic” bureaucracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Raymond F. Hopkins
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Abstract

Many agencies of the United States Government with nominally “domestic” mandates play important roles in international affairs, and collaborate extensively with other governments and international organizations in the performance of their tasks. In some areas, these agencies rather than intergovernmental organizations play key management roles. Data gathered from a variety of sources indicate the extensiveness of this involvement, and suggest that it continues to expand, although not in linear fashion. Certain trends in governmental reorganization, such as those in the Agriculture Department, suggest similar patterns to those observed in business firms as they become more heavily involved abroad. More attention needs to be paid to international networks involving “domestic” governmental bureaucracies and governmental agencies traditionally oriented toward international affairs. From a conceptual point of view, we should think of “international organization” as including not only formally intergovernmental organizations, but all officials who participate significantly in these networks.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , Summer 1976 , pp. 405 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1976

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References

1 The various organizations so defined may be found in Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, eds. Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The multinational firm is discussed in Vernon, Ramond, Sovereignty at Bay (New York: Basic Books, 1971)Google Scholar. On transgovernmental actors see Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph Jr, “Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations,” World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (10 1974): 55–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See, for instance, the use of the term “International organization” in the various essays in International Organization: Politics and Process, edited by Goodrich, Leland M. and Kay, David A. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

3 Alex Inkeles argues there is a growing global convergence of many social and economic patterns, a growth of connectedness and interdependence and a continuation of existing nation-states with their unique organizational patterns. See Inkeles, , “The Emerging Social Structure of the World,” World Politics, 27 (07 1975): 467–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Cox, Robert and Jacobson, Harold K., The Anatomy of Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973). esp. pp. 1–15Google Scholar.

5 John Gerard Ruggie and Ernst B. Haas refer to such networks as “international regimes” responsible for searching problems, establishing norms, defining rights and redefining choices. These are implicit in the general management functions that informal bureaucratic elite networks may be assuming. See “International Responses to Technology,” International Organization, 29 (Summer 1974): 557–61Google Scholar; 570–83; 852–76.

6 There are no doubt exceptions to this generalization, perhaps in handling certain health problems. Nevertheless, the increased capacity Mitrany looked for does not seem to have occurred, as recent UNESCO program evaluations, for instance, suggest. See Mitrany, David, A Working Peace System (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943)Google Scholar.

7 The US in 1975 withheld funds from UNESCO, and successfully urged that questions such as international food reserves be handled outside the United Nations framework. International energy, food, and commodity problems in 1974–75 were addressed largely outside the UN in bilateral talks, in regional meetings, in working parties on new international economic order concerns and in new bodies such as the International Energy Agency.

8 See Haas, Ernst, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958Google Scholar) and Beyond the Nation-State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Other authors with neo-functionalist perspectives include Joseph Nye, Jr., Leon Lindberg, Phillipe Schmitter, and James P. Sewall.

9 See Beloff, Max, New Dimensions of Foreign Policy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1961)Google Scholar; Cox and Jacobson; Keohane and Nye, World Politics; and Ernst Haas and John B. Ruggie, eds., “International Responses.” I am grateful to an anonymous referee for reminding me of the historical development of this intellectual perspective.

10 The recent growth of interdependence and international transactions has been traced among others by Katzenstein, Peter J., “International Interdependence: Some Long-term Trends and Recent Changes,” International Organization, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Autumn 1974): 1021–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr also discuss types of interdependence in their paper, “Organizing for Global Environmental and Resource Independence,” Report of the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, Appendix I (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976)Google Scholar.

11 “Toward a Global Community,” speech by Kissinger, Henry before the Indian Council on World Affairs, New Delhi, 10 28, 1974, Department of State PR 445, p. 5Google Scholar.

12 For a discussion of complexity, interdependence, and decomposability in political systems, see Brewer, Garry D. and Brunner, Ronald D., Organized Complexity (New York: Free Press, 1971)Google Scholar and Haas, Ernst, “Is there a hole in the whole?” International Organization, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Summer 1975): 852–68Google Scholar.

13 See, for instance, Bacchus, William I., “Obstacles to Reform in Foreign Affairs,” Orbis, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring 1974): 266–76Google Scholar.

14 See Halperin, Morton, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1974)Google Scholar.

15 Comment by Professor Kennan during a discussion of the research for this paper at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

16 This is not only a widely held view among government officials, but analysis of trade data tends to confirm it. Arthur Mackie, for instance, found the USSR, as a very inconsistent importer, largely responsible for the US price rise. See “International Dimensions of Agricultural Prices,” Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, 07 1974Google Scholar. Of course, a desire for higher prices for US farmers was a likely factor also, especially in the delay in lifting controls.

17 Interview with Orville Freeman, April 23,1975.

18 On the growth of international oil activity see Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1973)Google Scholar.

19 Interview with MrKleppe, , Vice-President, Exxon International, 04 22, 1973Google Scholar.

20 The quotation is from Morgan, John D. Jr, Bureau of Mines, Department of the Interior, in “Global Scarcities in an Interdependent World” Hearings before the subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 05 9, 1974, p. 103Google Scholar.

21 See US Agricultural Exports under Public Law 480, USDA, 10 1974Google Scholar.

22 According to Ambassador Edwin Martin, who headed preparations for the Rome World Food Conference, food aid is largely fungible and can be a good substitute in serving diplomatic ends for other aid, a point he made in an interview December 9, 1974.

23 Interview with Quentin West, Administrator of Economic Research Service (ERS) in Agriculture, July 13, 1975.

24 These claims were made by Ms. Wright and Mr. Sturgill, Office of the Secretary, Department of Interior, October, 1974.

25 After Palmby was passed over by Nixon as Secretary of Agriculture, he agreed to become an assistant secretary if the division he headed combined the divisions that previously were coordinated at the under-secretary level-namely FAS and ASCS.

26 Interview with Lyle Schertz, deputy administrator, ERS, July 18, 1975.

27 The conclusion of Louis T. Wells, Jr. is that as a firm's foreign business grows, it results in the end of the international division. See “The Multinational Business Enterprise: What kind of International Organization?” in Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Interview with James Frye, then Director of International Affairs, OMB, September 1974.

29 Interviews with Nelson Sieveiing, Jr., then Director, Office of General Scientific Affairs, State Department and now Assistant Administrator at ERDA, and Robert Sturgill, Office of International Affairs, Department of the Interior, October 1974.

30 See The Budget of the United States, Fiscal Year 1975, pp. 134–35, 641 and DHEW Special Report on International Activities-Action Memorandum, August 5, 1974. Agricultural department expenses exclude technical assistance, commodity stabilization programs, and costs of economic and agricultural research.

31 I am grateful for this data compiled by Kenneth Oye, Harvard University, March 1973, and shared with me by Robert O. Keohane, Stanford University.

32 Data supplied by General Services Administration, Herbert H. Scott, Passenger Transportation Services Branch. Since these figures included dependents, they probably exaggerate the figures for State. Treasury figures include travel by Federal Reserve and Ex-Im Bank employees.

33 Calculated from data supplied by Warren A. Blight, Deputy Director, Management and Finance, USDA, November 18, 1974. The small increases in air fares after 1968 do not account for this rise.

34 Calculated from data supplied by Joseph Nye, Jr., drawn from State Department sources. I am grateful to Professor Nye for sharing his data with me on official delegation composition. I have used only figures for Agriculture, HEW, Interior, FEA, AEC, Treasury, Justice and State.

35 Calculated from the 1972 GSA study, footnote 32.

36 Treasury official under the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs who asked that his observation not be attributed.

37 The 1966 International Education Act which would have significantly expanded US educational activities was never funded. The International Agriculture Development Service, created in 1964, was reorganized in 1970 and eventually absorbed into the Economic Research Service. The USDA participants at international meetings grew from 400 in 1956 to about 900 in 1963 and only came close again to this figure in 1970 and 1973. See USDA Participation in Intergovernmental and Nongovernmental International Meetings, Annual Summary, 1974, USDA, FAS, 01 1975, p. 5Google Scholar. Bilateral cooperation in energy grew, but principally in atomic energy until 1973. See Pollack, Herman and Congdon, Michael, “International Cooperation in Energy Research and Development,” Law and Policy in International Business, Vol. 6 (11 3, 1974)Google Scholar. The data base for even deciding what cooperation among countries would be desirable to meet the “energy crisis” was considered by the State Department in 1973 as “inadequate.”

38 This judgment is based on judgments of several informants, including two in the State Department and three at OMB.

39 Interview with Granville Austin, former HEW director for International Affairs, September, 1974.

40 Each department and agency studied was asked to supply a list of senior executives at GS-16 or above, with information on their length of service. In addition, recent phone books, an organizational chart (in the case of ERDA), and listings in the “plum” book-a list of unscheduled and policy positions outside the Civil Service-supplemented the data from agencies' personnel offices. In two cases resignations led to selection of a successor to the post chosen or to an alternative selection. I made an effort to interview a variety of types from office directors (usually GS-16) to assistant secretaries, from younger less experienced persons (age 33 was the youngest with three years in government), to senior officials (one with 33 years of government service).

41 Eighteen officials with responsibility for food and 25 in energy were initially chosen for formal study. Interviews were completed with 17 in food and 18 in energy. Two people-one in each category-were not interviewed because they seemed less suitable than I initially believed; they had little policy responsibility and they were in charge of explicit assistance type international programs. Among the others there were no explicit refusals; the overall response rate was 85.4 percent.

42 One of the two exceptions explained his job in the international division as getting the rest of his department “a little big pregnant” through international collaboration. On interdependence he felt it was “central to everything” and then lamented that in his department it seemed as if “everyone is fighting it.” But his was far from the dominant view. International activities for the most part tended to be justified by most international division officials as serving domestic goals; as one FEA executive stated: “We must prevent the international tail from wagging the dog of domestic policy.”

43 This group includes those in charge of research, legal activity and planning.

44 An argument that interdependence is growing in reality, as well as perceptually, is found in Rosecrance, Richard and Stein, Arthur, “Interdependence: Myth or Reality,” World Politics, Vol. 26, No. 1 (10 1973): 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Neustadt, Richard E., Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

46 One FEA official recounted the major efforts that he and other US officials had made to “depoliticize” energy relations through consultations with Canadian officials and concerted pressure within the US government during 1974 and early 1975. Interview, June 6, 1975. Similarly, Nye stresses the move toward bureaucratic agency resolution in US-Canadian relations in his essay, “Transnational Relationships and Interstate Conflicts: An Empirical Analysis,” International Organization 28 (Autumn, 1974): 961–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 For the importance of attitudes in shaping organizational behavior see George, Alexander, “Toward a More Soundly Based Foreign Policy,” Report of the Commission on the Organization of the Goverment for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, Appendix D (Washington: GPO, forthcoming, 1976)Google Scholar. Ernst Haas, “Is There a Hole,” discusses the prospects of provisional wholes emerging in “technology-task-environments” when interdependence creates purposes and knowledge upon which new international regimes can be built.

48 Cox, Robert W., “On Thinking About Future World Order,” World Politics, 28 (01 1976): 175–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is difficult to be sure whether the differences Cox finds among his three approaches are due to basic theoretical differences or to a focus on a different time frame in which change events are likely to occur. In any event both his favored historical-dialectic approach and the emphasis I have placed on the attitudes of bureaucratic managers emphasize the role of ideas in change as human minds respond to “facts” that confront them with new interpretations of reality and the obligations that follow.