All prescriptive decision-making epistemologies are rooted in worldviews. If the worldview assumptions of an epistemology are not congruent with the world in which decisions are to be made, that epistemology ought not to be granted prescriptive authority. The rationalistic wortdview is described in two versions, classic and modified, together with the prescriptive decision-making epistemologies that depend on them. The classic version is firmly grounded in the assumptions of the 18th century Enlightenment; the modified version is more pragmatic in orientation. Both emphasize order, clarity, empiricism, and logical analysis. An alternative, nonrationalistic worldview concerns itself with novelty, incongruity, intuition, and subjective awareness. Foreign-policy decision theorists routinely assume that the foreign-policy world contains a mixture of rationalistic and nonrationalistic elements but are reluctant to grant decision makers the intuitive and subjective capabilities that, together with logical thinking and empirical observation, are necessary to operate in such a world. This reluctance inhibits the development of a prescriptive decision-making epistemology suitable for a mixed world. Analytical psychology provides one avenue for exploring the prescriptive implications of a more comprehensive psychology. It is clear that in a world with important nonrationalistic elements, true rationality requires that nonrationalistic capabilities and skills be both appreciated and developed.

The rise of capitalism in Western Europe was based on rising mass incomes and a political power relationship favorable to the lower classes, which created opportunities for profitable investment. Nowhere in today's underdeveloped world did such conditions exist before the European expansion; nowhere were they created by the mere fact of integration into the capitalist world system. Thus the periphery has been ever more disadvantaged by its connection with the capitalist center. But the center could and can dispense withthe contribution of the periphery and, indeed, on occasion has done so. A planned restructuring of the productive apparatus and social reform in the Third World are both complex and contradictory processes. The working class in the North has to realize its interest in defending the masses of the Third World. It can do so by linking economic concessions in the North-South dialogue (raw material prices or access to markets) to social reform and the creation of a productive apparatus that permits the rise of mass incomes in the Third World.

In this article we address two questions pertinent to the debate on the relationship between industrial restructuring and the new protectionism. First, does the appearance of industry-specific trade barriers necessarily indicate an attempt to preserve those traditional sectors in which advanced capitalist states no longer enjoy a comparative advantage? Second, are all advanced capitalist states equally susceptible to protectionist pressures or will neomercantilist states, given their established capacity for sectoral intervention, find such pressures easier to resist than their liberal counterparts? After analyzing recent changes in textile technology and in the pattern of international competition in the textile industry, we examine the response of two states—the relatively liberal Canadian state and the neomercantilist French state—to this complex set of changes. The textile case indicates that it is a mistake to assume that states have but two options: protect or adjust. Links may be established between hightechnology and traditional industries that make it possible for inputs from the former to restore the competitive position of the latter. If such links are forged, then states may use trade barriers to allow producers time to adjust. French and Canadian textile policies reveal the conditions under which such states, although constrained by established policy networks, are nevertheless induced to respond in similar fashions to contemporary changes in the world economy.

Two theories explain changes in the international regimes for major economic sectors. A theory of hegemonic stability explains sectoral change as a consequence of ebbing hegemony; a theory of surplus capacity attributes regime shifts to a serious global problem with excess production capacity in the sector. The history of the world automobile industry shows that surplus capacity offers the better prediction and explanation for the timing of regime changes. However, a synthesis of the two theories is even more satisfactory. Hegemonic decline is a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. Surplus capacity, in the absence of a hegemon, creates the conditions necessary for change.

In the last ten years, employment in the textile and clothing industry in the European Community has decreased by roughly one million workers. In the face of falling employment, profits, and investment, and of surplus capacity, business and labor have increasingly pressured state and European authorities for adjustment assistance and import protection. Although most industrialized countries face similar pressures, policy making in the member states of the European Economic Community is made difficult by the uneven development of the EEC, which regulates trade policy and state aids to industry and restricts business practices but which is not able to construct interventionist or structural policies. Further complicating the situation is the split between two groups of states that differ profoundly on whether the EEC should adopt a liberal trading, noninterventionist position or a protectionist trade policy combined with state aids to mitigate the economic and social effects of restructuring. Tracing these developments over the last ten years, I argue that contradictions in the European political economy in textiles have led to a protectionist bias in Community policies, notwithstanding important developments in outward processing as a means of restructuring.

Certain “realist” views of the international economic regime construe international financial agencies as straightforward reflections of the power and interests of nation states. However, the World Bank's responsiveness to a wide range of demands for new development priorities and approaches also depends on the compliance of its huge staff. The staff's discretion in shaping, implementing, discrediting, or resisting these approaches requires an organizational-theoretic analysis of the sources of acceptance of or resistance to particular initiatives. Role-set theory accounts for many of the motivational sources of resistance. The capabilities to resist new initiatives through “bureaucratic politics” can be understood through March and Simon's emphasis on the importance of absorbing uncertainty. On the basis of these theories and findings on attitudes expressed by Bank staff, strategies can be developed to enhance the Bank's responsiveness to such initiatives as greater emphasis on the alleviation of poverty. Theory and findings also provide a basis for speculating on the characteristics required of an international agency to warrant treating it as an autonomous variable in the international system.

Parallels between the demands of the developing countries for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and earlier demands of American agrarian populists suggest that the NIEO reflects the characteristic grievances of commodity-producing societies (agraria) vis-a-vis their industrial counterparts (industria). Such grievances arise when modernization produces growing interaction and interdependence that threaten the autonomy of agraria. Conflict between agraria's ideal of independence and the reality of interdependence raises political consciousness, enhances group identity, leads to protests and proposals for reform, and stimulates efforts to withdraw from the dependency relationship. Both American agrarian populism and the NIEO movement protested the existing distribution of wealth and power, adverse terms of trade, an “excessive” middleman's share, a monetary system dominated by industria, limited access to credit, and the burden of debt. Proposed solutions were also parallel, partly because they responded to similar grievances, partly because they have arisen in a similar political context. A central problem of late 19th century American politics and contemporary world politics has been the restoration of political order under circumstances where the scope of political and social interaction has vastly expanded but where power within the political system is still widely dispersed. The proposals of both populist movements sought to deal with this problem by restoring local control and weakening supralocal forces.

This article updates earlier work by Haas, Butterworth, and Nye on conflict management by international organizations. In addition, it seeks to answer the question of whether one can fruitfully interpret conflict management as a case of regime growth and regime decay. For this purpose I develop indicators of regime coherence and regime effectiveness, and illustrate them by subjecting the management of disputes to time-series analysis. The discussion identifies when and under what global conditions the regime began to decay. Finally, I explain that decay in terms of four mutually supportive hypotheses. In this article I thus offer a statistical history of the conflict management functions of the United Nations and the major regional organizations, and use it to probe the limits of the utility of the regime literature.

As competition between newly industrializing and advanced industrialized countries has increased, trade protection has become a key issue. In textile and apparel trade, international regimes to regulate trade intervention have existed since the early 1960s. The 1981 renewal of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement poses two puzzles. First, why did countries choose to continue to manage conflict through an international regime rather than through some other arrangement? Second, why did the regime become weaker and more protectionist than in the past? An international structure approach suggests that regimes are wanted to prevent arrangements in larger systems from being undermined, to control the behavior of other countries, and to reduce information costs. Variation in regime strength can be explained by asymmetry in the distribution of capabilities in various systems. The nature of the regime is influenced by changes in international competition and by nesting. A domestic structure approach, on the other hand, focuses on the relationships between state and societal groups (the Commission and member states in the case of the EEC). The relative strength of groups affects national policies and the development and characteristics of regimes. A “processtracing” examination of international textile negotiations, emphasizing the response of decision makers to structural constraints and incentives, allows us to ascertain the relative influence of international and domestic structures on the negotiations and outcomes.

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.

Although the theory of hegemonic stability has attracted an impressive array of adherents, current formulations leave many conceptual issues unresolved. Existing formulations also fail to draw from the theory any implications concerning the process by which a hegemonic state creates and maintains a regime. As an example, Great Britain is generally agreed to have been hegemonic in the nineteenth century, but Britain's behavior was generally inconsistent with that implied by a theory of hegemonic stability. I advance an alternative set of explanations for changes in international tariff levels based on the notion of a “political business cycle.”

Four political models (the international system, rational domestic economic policy, intragovemmental politics, and interest group influence) may explain the cross-national structure of average nominal levels of tariffs on manufactures. Using available data measuring or approximating the explanatory variables for the time periods 1902 and 1971, selected hypotheses were tested in regression equations. The 1971 tariff levels are best predicted by rational economic policy variables while for 1902, international power variables provide the best predictions of the tariff. In general, the causal forces influencing the cross-national pattern of tariff levels appear to have shifted in the 20th century from those indicating international power to those measuring domestic politico-economic development. These results provide evidence relevant to some of the general propositions about size and development suggested by the contemporary political economy literature. They also lend support to those who argue that a rising level of international interdependence has resulted in long-term changes in the pattern of influences on national public policies.

International relations specialists who have been examining transgovernmental processes in the contemporary international system may be surprised to learn that at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 conscious efforts were made to organize the League of Nations along transgovernmental lines. Key British and French officials, most notably Sir James Arthur Salter and Jean Monnet, supported by Americans involved in implementing the Covenant, hoped to employ both the Secretariat and the organs designed for functionally specific cooperation to bring officials of national social and economic ministries into direct contact with one another, without the intermediation of their respective foreign ministries. While these officials only partially realized their objectives, sections of the League's Secretariat, an elaborate system of expert committees, and the League of Nations Assembly did provide transgovernmental linkages during the interwar period.

The chemical industry has produced a pattern of economic development and political change differing from that identified by research on the textile, steel, and automobile sectors. Its capacity for innovation and self-renewal renders inappropriate much of the logic of sectoral decline derived from theories of the product cycle. The postwar record of state-industry relations in France, Britain, West Germany, and the United States suggests that "strong" states can be helpful in bolstering the performance of the chemical industry in an expanding global economy but such states often frustrate the process of adaptation and adjustment during periods of recession. "Weak" states are particularly well suited to strong performance by the industry in both the good times and the bad.

Students of international negotiations often examine strategic interactions among a given set of parties dealing with a specified group of issues. The issues and parties themselves are often choice variables whose ultimate configuration can have decisive effects on a bargain's outcome. Using a variety of international cases, I investigate the properties of several classes of moves that are intended to alter the issues and parties of an original negotiation. A unified approach to the analysis of such situations suggests numerous distinct means by which the “addition” or “subtraction” of issues can yield one-sided gains to the use of power; can yield joint gains that create or enhance a zone of possible agreement; and can reduce or destroy a zone of possible agreement. The effects of adding or subtracting parties are similarly analyzed. However, unintended complexity, unforeseen interrelationships, organizational considerations, transactions costs, and informational requirements may alter the analysis of such moves.

Nationalization of the Zairian and Zambian copper industries failed to deliver the hoped for benefits and pushed some still further beyond reach. It did so because nationalization entailed the loss of insulation, that is, the wide range of unperceived risk management and custodial functions fulfilled by the multinational mining corporations. Without this insulation these two governments, their copper industries, and their citizens' welfare all suffered. Looking beyond Zaire and Zambia, it appears that the loss of insulation has negative effects in all cases of mining industry nationalization. The size of the costs are mitigated by the strength of the nationalizer's political system.

Two of the most significant regional organizations to emerge in Southern Africa in recent years are the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with nine members, and the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA), comprised of fourteen states including five SADCC members. Although their purposes and programs are similar and steadily converging, SADCC and PTA exhibit distinct differences in their origins, memberships, institutional structures, financial patrons, ideologies, and strategies. Although national development remains the ultimate aim of both bodies, reducing external dependency, especially in the case of SADCC on South Africa, and regional cooperation are seen as essential to success. While obvious areas of conflict exist, the two organizations may be able to restrain their rivalry in the interests of their members and possibly of their own survival.

Mercantilist explanations for the development of international trading orders have assumed that changes in peripheral areas during the 19th century corresponded with developments among the largest and most advanced countries of the period. Relatively free trade, however, was not the rule at three important ports along the Arabian coast when Great Britain was in a hegemonic position in the area. Rather, British predominance in this part of the world was generally associated with increasing closure in commercial affairs at these three ports. This finding throws doubt on both the collective goods logic and the notions of “the imperialism of free trade” that have been appropriated by writers such as Gilpin, Kindleberger, Krasner, and Keohane. Two alternative ways of explaining the pattern of trading relations at these three ports are sketched, and three ways of amending the mercantilist position to account for these data are suggested.

UNCTAD provides a unique focus for studying the response of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) to the New International Economic Order. Not only has UNCTAD played a role in stimulating East-South trade links since its foundation in 1964 but the East European members of the CMEA, collectively incarnated at UNCTAD as Group D, have there transformed their behavior with respect to the less developed countries. This transformation is evident in the evolution of Group D's position across four sets of negotiations: those on commodities trade and the Common Fund, on the Generalized System of Preferences, on the Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences, and on the Code of Conduct for Transfer of Technology. Contrasts between the conduct of the CMEA and that of the EEC at UNCTAD highlight the significance of Group D's use of international law to remake the world trade system. Implicit in this strategy is the question of domestic state trading structures, which appears to be a principal factor motivating issue-specific coalitions at UNCTAD between the CMEA countries and the Group of 77. The CMEA countries use UNCTAD to reinforce their sovereign prerogatives as states in a transnational world, refashioning at the same time the transnational environment in which states conduct mutual relations, in order to reconstruct in their own favor the international regimes governing various aspects of trade and development.