Venezuela's entry into the Andean Common Market (ACM) represents a case of systems transformation. Venezuelan membership has led both to major changes in economic provisions of the Common Market, and to significant alterations in political relations among members. Analysis of these changes depends on an understanding of the political debate in Venezuela, which was prolonged, and which led to membership under favorable terms earned through hard negotiations. Any assessment of the ultimate impact of Venezuelan participation in the ACM must remain guarded. As a wealthy and dynamic member, Venezuela could become an important catalyst for integration in the region. But with its superior economic capacity, Venezuela could also come to dominate the integrative effort, accruing most of the benefits to itself and in the process creating disruptions and dissatisfaction among the other members.

Administration of assistance projects by international lending agencies has come under increasing criticism during the past decade, a period when development projects have become primary instruments of international investment and an important element of public administration in developing nations. As a result international assistance agencies drastically reorganized their lending procedures during the early 1970s, creating complex requirements for project planning, appraisal, and implementation. But the formal procedures have become so complex that they are now beyond the administrative capacity of most developing nations and, perhaps, of the assistance agencies themselves. Evaluation reports reveal serious gaps between prescribed procedures and actual behavior at each stage of the project cycle. International requirements for project planning and implementation not only impose on developing nations a set of “rational” procedures that are often unrelated to political, administrative, and cultural constraints, but the attempts of Third World countries to conform may be adverse to their own interests.

The Red Cross, a transnational movement, has taken action in conflict situations that both conserves the authority of states and also circumscribes state behavior in the name of fundamental human rights. On the one hand, the Red Cross, principally through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), is cooperative toward states and acts discreetly in matters regarded by states as sensitive. On the other hand, the Red Cross has promoted the law of armed conflict to limit states and has accepted quasi-supranational authority in international armed conflict in the form of the right of automatic ICRC access to certain detainees. On the basis of this right, or sometimes on the basis of bypassing legal issues, the ICRC is able to transcend the “sovereignty” of states (and non-state parties as well). While the Red Cross movement is highly fragmented and encompasses a number of non-cosmopolitan elements, the historical impact of the movement has been to help liberalize the nation-state system, largely through the actions of the ICRC, while reinforcing fundamental authority within that system.

In analyzing the future of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), it is useful to assess both the centrifugal and centripetal forces affecting regional economic integration. Centrifugal forces include the existing structure of production in Eastern Europe; problems of coordination; and inefficient price systems, among others. Centripetal forces include the worldwide energy crisis; Western inflation and recession; the growing importance of trade blocs; and numerous other factors contributing to the increasing hard-currency indebtedness of the Eastern European countries. Many of these external events have increased the attractiveness for CMEA countries of intrabloc economic relations and provided a momentum for CMEA integration. Analysis of the various forces leads to the conclusion that Soviet economic policy vis-à-vis Eastern Europe will remain crucial in determining the direction and speed of economic integration. Soviet economic involvement with Eastern Europe seems to have been costly for the USSR during the past decade and so it is not obvious that the USSR will attempt to push integration much further than it now stands.

Analysis of the United States’ shift to support of trade preferences for developing countries in 1967 provides evidence for the value of a “bureaucratic politics” model that pays attention to the importance of transgovernmental relations in influencing national policy making. Between 1964 and 1967, international organizations affected, United States policy making on trade preferences, and officials within the US government who favored preferences used such organizations-particularly the OECD-to help change American policy. Intergovernmental, transgovernmental, and national levels of policy making were closely linked to one another. This case study suggests the need for a broadened conception of “bureaucratic politics”; but it also supports the view that the “bureaucratic politics” and “rational actor” approaches are fundamentally complementary rather than antithetical.

Students of regional integration have suggested that participants in international activities may experience attitudinal changes which are favorable for subsequent integrative processes. Interviews with 24 French and Italian staff members of permanent delegations at European Community headquarters, however, indicate that these delegates did not increase their support for integration during their tenure, but that they became more realistic about European Community politics. Delegates A appear to differ primarily on the basis of ministerial affiliation and nationality, while no significant variations appeared to be correlated with other factors tested.