Since the notion of the “national interest” plays a pivotal role in the discourse of state action, its clarification as a normative term is historically as well as systematically important. Differing from the conventional approach, which defines the national interest according to genus and taxa, I shall argue that due to its function as a normative term the national interest cannot be understood in taxonomic categories; it necessitates an investigation of the logic of its use according to specified criteria. In this context the notion of the “public interest” is, for historical as well as systematic reasons, illuminating. As historical investigation shows, the term national interest is neither self-justificatory nor arbitrary within the conventions of the European state system until the late nineteenth century. Important changes in the international system can be traced by following the fundamentally changed usage of the term after 1870. A short comparison with and critique of Waltz's “systemic theory” of international relations concludes the article.

Indian firms are moving abroad in increasing numbers to establish manufacturing plants with local partners in less-industrialized countries. As a result, India has become one of the few important sources of Third World technology. Indian foreign direct investment was the intended consequence of foreign trade policies designed to link exports with investment, and the unintended consequence of Indian regulatory policies designed to restrict the domestic growth of large-scale private enterprises. In addition, Indian overseas operations were aided by existing financial and technical collaboration agreements in India and by expanded collaboration overseas between transnational corporations and Indian private and public enterprises. These various factors have disproportionately affected the five to ten largest Indian industrial conglomerates that control the bulk of Indian joint ventures abroad. The experiences of these firms and of the Indian government in promoting their foreign investments have had important consequences for the domestic policy process in India and for Indian foreign policy.

Development policy is analyzed by liberal models in terms of bargaining transactions between interest-maximizing actors and by the dependency perspective in terms of the internalized requirements of worldwide capital accumulation. Both approaches assume the working of capitalist rationality in dependent nations. In contrast, a focus on productive relations, class alliances, and political coalitions reveals the constraints on developmental policies in nations built around the partial development of capitalist productive forces and occupying a subordinate role in the international division of labor. Analysis of the Venezuelan auto policy during the Pérez administration (1974–79) shows the relations constituting socially defined actors and the structures underlying the policy bargaining process. It posits that in Venezuela there is a growing disjuncture between the internationally conditioned requirements of capital accumulation and the locally based demands of social reproduction; that the common interest of state and bourgeoisie in maintaining the rentier basis of the economy shapes the direction and extent of industrial development; and that circulation of petrodollars has absorbed production as a phase of circulation. The struggle between state and transnational corporations over local engine manufacture, and the tension between import substitution and export promotion, concealed an underlying conflict between rent appropriation and capital accumulation.

Rationalization, standardization, and interoperability (RSI) has been an important issue in NATO throughout the 1970s. Increasingly, national political and military leaders have expressed the concern that doctrine, procedures, and materiel should be harmonized more effectively as one means of counterbalancing the Warsaw Pact. However, in the past decade RSI initiatives have been largely unsuccessful. Weapons standardization in NATO depensupon the scope and degree of ideological advocacy for the collaborative security imperative and the influence of economic competition in arms production and sales among the members of the Alliance. An analysis of the disparate views of the member-states and of threecase studies—the MX-1 tank treads, the ribbon bridge, and ROLAND II—indicates that ideological advocacy has been high among international and national elites (if not among subnational elites), but that the increased economic competition following the rise of European defense industries during the last fifteen years has exacerbated national policy differences and decreased the prospects for RSI success.

The rise of direct marketing of crude oil by state-owned enterprises from producer countries has added to the instability of world oil trade. The major cause of the rise of direct marketing was the changing structure of barriers to entry into the industry by new firms. Upstream, shifting entry barriers enabled state-owned enterprises increasingly to displace international companies; meanwhile, independents were increasing their share of refining capacity downstream. These changes contributed to the demise of traditional patterns of vertical integration. But these vertically integrated linkages had served to stabilize world oil trade, so their demise added to the turbulence of the international market. In response, both governments and firms from oil-importing countries have sought, with mixed success, to create new ties to sellers in order to stabilize the market.