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Map of Middle East |
International Organization
Spring 1997
International systems have historically varied along a continuum from extremely fragmented to highly consolidated. Four hypotheses help explain the changes over time. First, the logic of "self-help" under anarchy encourages strong states to absorb weak ones, promoting system consolidation. Second, international economic interdependence also promotes state expansion and system consolidation. Third, accepted principles of unit identity help determine the type of unit--whether empires, nations or proto-nations, or personalistic units--that characterizes the international system. Fourth, the size and nature of units is generally limited by the administrative technologies available. The history of the ancient Middle East illustrates how these factors operate over time to transform international systems. In the twentieth century, increasingly narrow principles of unit identity have encouraged decolonization and state breakup, causing increasing fragmentation in the system.
Constructivists have argued that interest-based explanations cannot fully account for important international phenomena and that analysis of the social construction of state identity may explain the genesis of state interests. This argument can be applied to the early development of neutral rights policy in the United States, when a weak and divided state clung to a policy that was opposed and consistently challenged by far stronger powers. My explanation poses a principled conception of identity: if leaders adopt a principle that constitutes a specific international role for the state and commands domestic legitimacy, then diverse interests will converge on that principle, generating foreign policy continuity. While neorealist and liberal institutionalist theories each provide fragments of an explanation, a constructivist hypothesis comprehensively explains the relative continuity of the policy over time.
Realist theories of international relations explain many of the features of outer space law. However, they fail to explain the process by which the superpowers agreed to treat space as a common area open for use by all states rather than as a realm for conquest to be parceled out among those able to assert control over it. Cognitive science understandings of reasoning by analogy explain how the superpowers came to agreement and illuminate the process by which later proposals for elaborating more specific rules for space activity were generated and evaluated. By providing a richer micro-level theory of actors' mental processes, cognitive science offers a better understanding of the impact of ideas on international politics.
During 1991-92, Israel's security agencies instituted changes in their techniques for interrogating Palestinian detainees. Rather than using brute force that was not centrally overseen, they began to use painful measures that did not leave scars, that were more tightly controlled by higher officials, and that they portrayed in public as humane. Israeli agencies did not apply these changes to interrogations in southern Lebanon, however. In Palestine, but not in Lebanon, the targeted population actively used world media to publicize allegations of mistreatment and notified international agencies and human rights groups of their plight. The Israeli changes illustrate that global forces are pushing at least some states to alter their sanctioned violence practices toward a worldwide norm of legitimacy that emphasizes professionalism, rationalization, and bureaucratization. Sociological field theory can explain much of this behavior but requires some modification to account for variations such as those described here.
The "structural choice" approach to analyzing public policymaking can explain why U.S. policy toward inward foreign direct investment has changed over time from one of benign neglect to one of discretionary restriction in some sectors. In short, the transformation has resulted from elected policymakers' shifting calculations with respect to their perceptions of the national interest and their own political objectives. These policy dynamics are evident in the origin of and the transformation in the composition, mission, and authority of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the institution at the heart of the regulatory regime targeting inward foreign direct investment. As agents of the electorate and as principals animating administrative institutions of government, these elected congressional and executive policymakers have determined the amount and types of discretion granted to CFIUS in a manner consistent with their political interests and with anticipated problems of overseeing delegated power.