Certain relationships among hegemony, international openness, capitalism, and state formation are stipulated by Polanyi, Kindleberger, Gilpin, Krasner, and Wallerstein. Here they are put to question through an examination of the rise and fall of the Yoruba state in the 18th and 19th centuries. In contrast to what widely held theories would predict, the Yoruba state was strengthened through greater exposure to international commerce. Second, from the point of view of African traders, the rise of British hegemony meant a decline in freedom to trade. Third, although the remnants of the Yoruba state were on the periphery of the world economy, its traders were able to penetrate international markets, even during periods of international economic crisis, with considerable success. In light of these findings, some suggestions are made for the reformulation of conventional theories;

International regimes are defined as principles, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area. As a starting point, regimes have been conceptualized as intervening variables, standing between basic causal factors and related outcomes and behavior. There are three views about the importance of regimes: conventional structural orientations dismiss regimes as being at best ineffectual; Grotian orientations view regimes as an intimate component of the international system; and modified structural perspectives see regimes as significant only under certain constrained conditions. For Grotian and modified structuralist arguments, which endorse the view that regimes can influence outcomes and behavior, regime development is seen as a function of five basic causal variables: egoistic self-interest, political power, diffuse norms and principles, custom and usage, and knowledge.

When should internationally shared resources be subdivided and property and management rights to parts of the resource be distributed among nation states? Subdivision leads to inefficient exploitation and to an arbitrary division of benefits under three conditions: when property rights cannot be economically enforced; when the size and the value of the resource are unknown; and when exploitation involves external economies. The efficient use of such common property resources requires private or public regulation. Voluntary private regulation is likely to be effective only when few users are involved. In other cases, public regulation is called for. Some attributes of an intergovernmental organization designed to achieve efficient, equitable, and stable exploitation are presented. Current proposals for managing ocean resources, the orbit-spectrum resource, and Antarctica are considered.

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.

In the 1970s the U.S. executive branch was forced to make a significant change in the procedure it uses to influence decisions by the multilateral development banks. This procedural change—from exclusive reliance on behind-the-scenes pressure to open voting in bank councils—reflects two more fundamental alterations: the relative diminution of U.S. power in bank councils and, especially, the development of increased congressional interest in formulating U.S. policy toward the banks. As a result of these two changes, the United States has identified publicly many of the policies it seeks to promote through the banks. Taken as a whole, the U.S. voting record indicates an abandonment of the verbal commitment to the liberal concept of maintaining the banks as apolitical financial institutions. Since the concept has never been a reliable guide to U.S. behavior in bank councils, its abandonment does not signify a major change in the relationship between the banks and the United States government. Rather, it signifies an opening of the U.S. political process, one that encourages public debate and multiple advocacy in the making of U.S. policy toward the banks.

Two central tenets of dependency theory are supported by the analysis of the causes and consequences of the exchange rate policies of less developed countries (LDCs). First, one critical component—high partner trade concentrations—is recreated by the choice of exchange arrangements. Specifically, nations that have maintained a dollar peg have significantly increased their concentration of trade with the United States since 1973. This occurs because of the exchange rate risk present in any transaction that involves a dollar-pegged currency and any other major currency against which it floats. Second, such an effect produces incentives for internal and external actors with an interest in the partner composition of future trade to influence the exchange rate policy of LDCs. Various components of the dependence situation that strengthen the role of such actors—partner trade concentrations, treaty arrangements, foreign aid, etc.—are significantly correlated with actual exchange rate practice. Thus, exchange rate policy is a linch-pin mechanism, in that it both manifests distortions produced by dependency and further acts to recreate a vital aspect of the situation that gave rise to the distortions.

Much of the confusion in the current literature on regimes is due to the fact that two very different metaphors about nature, science, and culture inform the discussion. The two metaphors—the organic and the mechanical—imply six different approaches to world order studies, and hence to the analysis and advocacy of regimes. Each of the six—eco-environmentalism, eco-reformism, egalitarianism, liberalism, mercantilism, and mainstream views—advances different arguments about the origin of regimes, the structural principles that explain their growth and decay, their functioning, and the values they serve. Yet each approach uses the same basic vocabulary: system, structure, process, costs-and-benefits, public goods, management, learning, organization, hegemony, and collaboration. Clarity about each argument, and a possible synthesis of views, can be achieved only if we understand the semantic and philosophical contexts in which the terminology is embedded. This article attempts the task of terminological and contextual explication in the setting of evolutionary epistemology and of contending theories of international relations. It opts for a synthesis of the analyses of regimes offered by mainstream views and by a normative view of world order represented by the eco-reformist approach. The discussion is illustrated with references to the Law of the Sea negotiations.

The direction of movement of integration between the member states of the European Communities was uncertain in the early 1970s. The increasingly intergovernmental style of decision making was then seen to have a potential for furthering integration, although a number of disintegrative pressures were noted. In 1973–1974, however, the teleological ambiguities were resolved, and in the late 1970s member states increasingly stressed autonomy rather than integration. Intergovernmental decision making then acquired a different character from that which it had shown in the early seventies. A shift in the center of gravity of the Communities' institutions, away from the Commission and in favor of the Presidency and the national foreign ministers and officials, both reflected and encouraged these developments.

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.

The 1970s were a period of turmoil as governments in both developed and less developed countries tried to take the lead in national oil development. While governments shifted from the role of landlord to that of entrepreneur, forming state oil companies, multinational corporate and private domestic industry groups blocked the way by switching from renters to political opponents. By the close of the decade, state oil companies had carved themselves a niche in multinational oil company operations but had been forced to make room there for other national industry groups as well. This article compares the process in Norway, Britain, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and tries to explain evidence that states in less developed countries (LDCs) gained more from multinational oil companies than did those in developed countries. Contrasting hypotheses concerning the ability of LDCs to harness multinational companies are explored. An alternative hypothesis is generated that relies on domestic rather than just international factors to explain the relatively greater gains of LDCs; it holds implications for the state's roles as landlord or entrepreneur. This explanation is contrasted with arguments that the coherence or strength of domestic structures explains relative state gains in the international economy.

International regimes are attitudinal phenomena. They are thus subjective and exist primarily as participants' understandings, expectations or convictions about legitimate, appropriate or moral behavior. Regimes are identified and their tenets described by studying records of participants' perceptions gleaned either from interview transcripts or from appropriate documents. Theorizing concerning international regimes currently focuses upon identifying analytic characteristics that might become bases for comparative empirical studies and foundations for generalization. Particularly promising are comparisons of international regimes with regard to specificity, formality, modes of change, and distributive bias. The regime that buttressed late 19th century European colonialism is compared to the international food regime of the present day with respect to these analytic features. Observations on the two cases suggest reasons why some international regimes are durable and others fragile, why some invite wide compliance and others provoke deviation, and why some change while the international structure of power remains constant but others change only after the weak become strong.

In 1980 Mexico decided not to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Certain objective conditions formed a positive environment for Mexican adherence, but President L6pez Portillo postponed Mexican entry indefinitely. This critical decision is examined from two perspectives: a left-leaning foreign policy, and domestic constraints in the Mexican political system. Major foreign policy factors were a growing resentment of U.S. dominance combined with a preference for conducting relations with the U.S. on a bilateral basis. Internal political pressures reflected the continued reform of the Mexican political system at the upper levels and the relative autonomy of some elite groups from the state. L6pez Portillo's decision did not constitute an outright rejection of trade liberalization. However, the decision could have international repercussions in ‘politicizing’ U.S.-Mexican trade relations, in slowing trends toward freer trade (especially in Latin America), and in strengthening multilateral organizations like UNCTAD in which Third World countries exercise considerable power.

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.

India's experience with the international computer industry serves as a key test of the “bargaining school” and the “Marxist-dependencia school” on relations between developing countries and multinational enterprises. India changed (and improved) its performance over time in reformulating its ties with the international computer industry. How did changes in international computer technology and industrial structure combine with Indian domestic institutional and political developments to yield an improved position for India in international computing? The case study illustrates the overall analytical superiority of the bargaining school over the Marxist-dependencia school. It also suggests a modest revision of the bargaining school's understanding of the speed at which certain developing countries are attaining the capability to negotiate successfully with multinationals in high-technology industries.

The dynamics of international regimes are treated as social institutions. How and why do regimes arise from the interactions of individual actors over time? Three developmental sequences are identified, and the resultant regimes are described as spontaneous orders, negotiated orders, and imposed orders. How do regimes change once they have become established in specific social settings? Three major types of pressure for regime change arise from internal contradictions, shifts in underlying power structures, and exogenous forces. The next task in studying the dynamics of international regimes is to seek a more sophisticated understanding of the factors determining the incidence of these developmental sequences and pressures for change.

The study of regimes can contribute to our understanding of international politics only if regimes represent more than international organizations and less than all international relations. The conceptualization of regimes developed here accepts the realist image of international politics, in which autonomous self-interested states interact in an anarchic environment. Yet there are situations in which rational actors have an incentive to eschew unconstrained independent decision making, situations in which individualistic self-interested calculation leads them to prefer joint decision making (regimes) because independent self-interested behavior can result in undesirable or suboptimal outcomes. These situations are labeled dilemmas of common interests and dilemmas of common aversions. To deal with these, states must collaborate with one another or coordinate their behavior, respectively. Thus there are different bases for regimes, which give rise to regimes with different characteristics. Coordination is self-enforcing and can be reached through the use of conventions. Collaboration is more formalized and requires mechanisms both to monitor potential cheating and to insure compliance with the regime. The article elucidates the assumptions of such an interest-based approach to regimes, assimilates alternative explanations into this framework, and develops the implications for regime maintenance and change.

Industrialization efforts in Central America started in the post–World War II period, partly as a result of advocacy by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) of import-substitution industrialization and integration policies. Import-substitution industrialization was expected to stimulate employment and technological development, and to alleviate the balance-of-payments difficulties resulting from deteriorating terms of trade. From the beginning, import-substitution industrialization was linked to the creation of the Central American Common Market (CACM), which was expected to encourage industrialization through the formation of larger markets and through protectionist policies. But integration's final form abandoned many of the policies advocated by ECLA, particularly those relating to planning and treatment of foreign actors. Instead, the 1960 integration agreements emphasized “free trade” and the rapid creation of a customs union. The Central American Common Market provided an opening to foreign capital, which was encouraged, rather indiscriminately, through protection and fiscal incentives.

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.