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International Relations as a Prismatic System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Fred W. Riggs
Fred W. Riggs
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

Conventional theories of international relations assume, implicitly, the model of an “inter-state system.” According to this model, individually states possess a set of characteristics which differ fundamentally from the characteristics of a system of those states interacting with each other. On this basis we can construct theories about the behavior of component states in the system, and more general propositions about the nature of the inter-state system viewed as a whole. Some of the difficulties of this model will be noted here, and an alternative model proposed.

Before pointing to these difficulties, however, we need a clear image of the inter-state model. A classic formulation is contained in a speech given by former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at a meeting of the American Society for International Law. In it Mr. Dulles identified six characteristics of the nation-state: (1) laws which “reflect the moral judgment of the community”; (2) political machinery to revise these laws as needed; (3) an executive body able to administer the laws; (4) judicial machinery to settle disputes in accord with the laws; (5) superior force to deter violence by enforcing the law upon those who defy it; and (6) sufficient well-being so that people are not driven by desperation to ways of violence. The international system, Mr. Dulles pointed out, in large part lacks these characteristics. He went on to assess the limited success of attempts, ranging from the League of Nations and Kellogg-Briand Pact through the United Nations, to create such a “state system” or “order” at the international level. Mr. Dulles sadly reported that, despite notable progress in the development of international law and judicial machinery, the desired international order does not, as yet, exist.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 14 , Special Issue 1: The International System: Theoretical Essays , October 1961 , pp. 144 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1961

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References

1 Department of State Bulletin, XXXIV (May 7, 1956), p. 740.

2 The latest work to reflect this new approach is The Politics of the Developing Areas, edited by Gabriel Almond, Chairman of the Committee, and James Coleman (Princeton, N.J., 1960).

3 In an earlier essay, I used the terms “Agraria and Industria” (Siffin, William, ed., Toward the Comparative Study of Public Administration, Bloomington, Ind., 1957, pp. 23–116).Google Scholar The new terminology is not a replacement for these, but sets them in a broader perspective.

4 For a more complete explanation of die “prismatic” model, see my “Prismatic Society and Financial Administration,” Administrative Science Quarterly, v (June 1960), pp. 1–46. The reader who finds this term awkward may substitute some such expression as “underdeveloped” or “transitional,” although each of these carries unintended connotations.

5 For a discussion of this approach and a list of functional requisites, see Levy, Marion Jr, The Structure of Society, Princeton, N.J., 1952, pp. 149–97.Google Scholar

6 Lasswell, Harold and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society, New Haven, Conn., 1950, pp. 187–88.Google Scholar

7 Because such expressions as “state” and “local government” imply formal authority as well as effective control, it is more exact to refer to the former as an “ortho-rule” and to the latter as a “micro-rule” if we wish to designate the control system alone. In this article the terms “rule” and “ortho-rule” will be used as synonyms, and we shall not have occasion to discuss “micro-rules.”

8 Lasswell, and Kaplan, , op.cit., p. 57.Google Scholar

9 However, a refracted macro-rule would probably be federalistic, or oli-polar, in its territorial structure, but might vary within wide limits in functional structure—i.e., between unsegmented power in a uni-organizational “dictatorship,” and a segmented distribution or poly-organizational “republic.”

10 We could extend this terminology by calling a regime an “ortho-regime,” and a “micro-regime” one having a jurisdiction smaller than its sovereign's.

11 In a more complete terminology, we might speak of “micro-polity” as including micro-regime and micro-rule; “ortho-polity,” ortho-regime and ortho-rule.

12 Lasswell, and Kaplan, , op.cit., pp. 55–57, 83–92.Google Scholar

13 The “elect” differ from the “elite” in that they rank high in all values, not merely in power; correspondingly, the “reject” are deprived with respect to all values. See ibid., p. 62.

14 This discussion is based on the analysis furnished by Deutsch, Karl W. in Nationalism and Social Communication, New York, 1953.Google Scholar

15 The word is onomatopoeic, based on sounds common to such words as “clique,” “club,” “sect,” “collect,” “eclectic.” We seem to lack an established word for this concept.

16 For a fundamental review of economic concepts in this connection, see Polanyi, Karl, Arensberg, Conrad, and Pearson, Harry, Trade and Market in the Early Empires, Glencoe, Ill., 1957.Google Scholar

17 For an extended treatment, see my “The Bazaar-Canteen Model,” Philippine Sociological Review, VI (July-October 1958), pp. 6–59. A more succinct treatment is given in my “Prismatic Society and Financial Administration” (cited in note 4 above).

18 Galbraith, Kenneth in The Affluent Society (Boston, 1958)Google Scholar has convincingly shown the relationship between these variables in contemporary American economic development.