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.

The primary objective of this volume is an integrated analysis of the economic and political factors that together determine international economic arrangements. The international economic order of the first postwar generation has eroded badly, if not totally collapsed. The search for replacements is well under way, but has not progressed far.

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.

We argue that mercantilism is not an anachronism, but a pattern of interaction between economies functioning analytically as subsystems both of nations and societies. The relation between theory and policy in France's post-war monetary history suggests two concepts of mercantilist rationalization of external economic policy. Although verbalized in terms of liberal economic theory, French monetary policy served nationalist diplomacy (diplomatic mercantilism) and/or the specific societal politics of the domestic economy (political mercantilism). Diplomatic and political mercantilism are indices of indeterminacy of international economics. Societal politics and international economics are thresholds of feasibility for diplomatic mercantilism. But cumulative rationalization of feasible external economic policy in terms of both political and diplomatic mercantilism is not excluded. As a function both of national system maintenance and societal integration, mercantilism is more easily explained in terms of sociological functionalism than in terms of either international functionalism or Realism alone.

With increasing frequency and growing vehemence, we are being told that on our “only one earth” we are, for the first time, living a single history. By this is meant that technological, ecological, political, economic, and social environments are becoming so globally enmeshed that changes taking place in one segment of international society will have consequential repercussions in all others. An equally frequent and no less vehement remonstration attending this observation is that the scope and complexity of new scientific and technological developments are outpacing the capacities of our systems of international organization to manage them. The necessity has emerged, this line of reasoning continues, to restructure our international institutional frameworks in keeping with the unhitching of nature's constants which science and technology have effected. But on what basis? According to what principles? Toward what ends?

Until August 1971, the United States categorically rejected any notion of devaluing the dollar and championed an international monetary system based on fixed but adjustable exchange rates. From August 1971 through February 1973, the United States aggressively sought massive devaluation of the dollar, and since early 1973, it has actively promoted the adoption of highly flexible exchange rates.

A new approach is suggested to analyze the relations between the EC and national administrations on the one hand and the EC and national interest groups on the other. Drawing from research in comparative politics and public administration, the essay examines the working relationship between a government agency and an interest group in order to see what functions each performs. Under certain conditions, there arises a situation called clientela, a close relationship between agency and group. When studying the EC, a crucial question concerns the reasons why an interest group would forsake a productive national relationship for a new one at the Community level. One conclusion suggests that the extent of national clientela will determine both the development of Community-level interests groups as well as the strength of EC-national interest group linkages.

Data collected from a survey of corporate managers in the Federal Republic of Germany are used, first, to describe the level and pattern of attachment of this critical elite as regards regional integration in Western Europe and, second, to assess two alternative hypotheses purporting to explain different integration support levels among members of this elite. While not entirely satisfactory, the concept we introduce, “external interest” (defined as an individual's perception of the “effect” and “valence” of regional integration on one's own well-being), is more highly correlated with integration attitude than is its rival, Inglehart's concept of “values,” with respect to both the German managerial data we collected and also the European Community (EC) survey data upon which Inglehart's original analysis was based. The investigation drew attention to operationalizations of the concept “regional integration”; what in fact is being measured and explained when alternative (often analyst-specific) approaches yield conflicting findings.

“International safeguards” refer to a set of international agreements establishing control over the production, use, and final disposition of fissionable materials. Before the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) went into effect, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards had been applied to 75 reactors and ten other nuclear facilities under 51 different agreements. The design of the first regime was largely a function of political, strategic, and economic rather than technical considerations. After 1971, safeguards were made an integral part of the NPT, and became obligatory with respect to all peaceful nuclear activities in signatory states. Negotiations on the NPT safeguards regime focused on efforts to minimize the major asymmetrical costs that this implied, and particularly to meet the objections of major nonnuclear weapons states. The focus of controversy centered less on resistance to incursions on sovereignty than on demands for equity in incursion. In these negotiations, technological factors facilitated the construction of a politically acceptable regime.

The Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD), a 26-member committee chaired by the US and the USSR and reporting annually to the UN General Assembly, has been stalled for three years over two issues which neither super power wishes to agree on: chemical weapons and a comprehensive nuclear testing ban. As a result, the future viability of the world's only multilateral forum for negotiating arms control is in jeopardy. In recent years a movement has been initiated by certain non-aligned states—mostly notably Mexico, Sweden, and Yugoslavia—to shake up the procedural foundations of the CCD so as to bring about substantive changes in its agenda, its manner of operation, its composition, and its results. The immediate diplomatic vehicle for this procedural revolution is the convening of a new deliberative forum, the World Disarmament Conference (WDC). The WDC has been debated in the last three General Assemblies where it has evolved in substance and built a constituency of support so that there is a distinct possibility such a body may be convened in the next few years. Its most significant achievement would be to bring France and China into world disarmament forums, and to legitimize on-going bilateral and regional arms control structures which have been created in the absence of movement at the CCD.

Edward Hallet Carr observed that “the science of economics presupposes a given political order, and cannot be profitably studied in isolation from politics.” Throughout history, the larger configurations of world politics and state interests have in large measure determined the framework of the international economy. Succeeding imperial and hegemonic powers have sought to organize and maintain the international economy in terms of their economic and security interests.

The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Treaty of Tlatelolco) was signed in 1967 and is now in force for eighteen Latin American nations (the important exceptions being Argentina and Brazil). Under the terms of the treaty the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (OPANAL) was established in 1969. With headquarters in Mexico City, OPANAL is a sophisticated control mechanism composed of three principal organs: a General Conference, Council and Secretariat. This article examines the effort to establish regional nuclear weapons free zone in Latin America and analyzes the ability of the Tlatelolco Treaty to provide the legal and political framework for containment of the growing military potential of Latin American nuclear energy programs. Particular attention is given to the positions of key Latin American nations within the region, nuclear weapons states, and those nations retaining territorial interest within the nuclear weapons free zone. In addition several policy options are advanced which could facilitate the more complete implementation of regional nuclear arms control in Latin America.

The international monetary system—the rules and conventions that govern financial relations between countries—is an important component of international relations. When monetary relations go well, other relations have a better chance of going well; when they go badly, other areas are likely to suffer too. Monetary relations have a pervasive influence on both domestic and international economic developments, and history is strewn with examples of monetary failure leading subsequently to economic and political upheaval. Recent years have seen considerable turmoil in international monetary relations, and a marked deterioration in relations between Europe, Japan, and America. Ideally, monetary relations should be inconspicuous, part of the background in a well-functioning system, taken for granted. Once they become visible and uncertain, something is wrong.

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.

The construction of explanatory theory about the determinants of regional integration is contingent upon our prior ability to measure integration in a typology or set of dimensions as a description and classification of that dependent variable. Previous attempts to conceptually differentiate the types of regional integration are reviewed and found to be contradictory. In order to generate empirically informed estimates about which typifications of integrative behavior are the most powerful and reasonable for theory construction, Joseph Nye's framework was selected for analysis. Construct validation was performed by operationalizing Nye's variables and confronting his scheme with data drawn from the Southeast Asian regional subsystem in order to ascertain the scheme's region-specific applicability. Factor analysis provided partial support for Nye's construct. The evidence derived here suggests that regional integration is a multidimensional phenomenon and that efforts to construct a single, multipurpose index of integration are not warranted. The major dimensions of regional integration emergent were (a) societal interdependence, (b) attitudinal integration, and (c) intergovernmental cooperation. The findings suggest that it is most meaningful to formulate theories in terms of the sources of each distinct type of integration; moreover, it appears that the dimensionality of integration may vary across regions and/or types of national actors.

The question arises whether “technological imperatives” or political considerations will guide the activity and determine the structure of regimes that support the use of technology on an international scale. In the case of communications satellites, the establishment of such a regime involves the search for structures that could satisfy technology and still remain responsive to political forces that desired to affect the decision-making process. The regime which has emerged resulted from the interplay of technology and politics. Initially it consisted of a single global agency, INTELSAT, but as the full potential of the technology became known, a single agency could not provide an adequate forum for the political interests that were associated with each new application that was discovered. Thus, the regime came to consist of a number of related organizations each dedicated to particular uses of the technology.

In the 21 years since the conclusion of the Second World War, a complicated, piecemeal framework of trading arrangements under various international organizations has been created. Now there is concern, internationally and domestically, as to whether this framework is a durable basis for expanded world trade.

This paper provides data on long-term changes in international interdependence. Transactions exchanged between societies and states are one possible means of interdependence. Two decades ago Karl Deutsch collected a substantial amount of data which illustrated a long-term decline in transactions since the beginning of the twentieth century. An extension of his time series data points to a possibly important reversal of that trend in recent years. This conclusion is in agreement with other empirical measures of international interdependence.

Based on interviews with 82 national legislators in all nine member states of the European Community, this article examines and analyzes the attitudes and anticipated behavior of the respondents with respect to political integration. In the analysis we pursued four paths: personal motivations, constituency concerns, views of the European Parliament, and a sketch of the history of efforts for direct elections. According to our findings, political integration offers these legislators neither personal-material, electoral-partisan, nor institutional-prestige rewards that are unambiguous. Nevertheless, the interviews also show considerable expression of support for an expanded level and scope of decision making by the Community institutions and for political union. This might be explained by the attractiveness of a United Europe as a forum in which small and medium powers are able to act as a great power. However, the nation state provides things even more basic to political classes: an identity, immediate access to available power, and opportunities for more power.