TL_Williams 3/16/05 6:42 PM Page 1

III

The Actors in
International
Politics

States, Institutions, and Individuals

18. J. David Singer
The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International
Relations
19. Ole R. Holsti
Models of International Relations and Foreign
Policy
20. Graham T. Allison
Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis
The Rise of Non-State Actors
21. Richard Mansbach, Yale, H. Ferguson, and
Donald E. Lampert
Towards a New Conceptualization of Global
Politics
22. Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore
The Politics, Power and Pathologies of
International Organizations
23. Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink
Advocacy Networks in International Politics
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2 The Actors in International Politics

INTRODUCTION

One of the perennial issues facing scholars of international relations concerns

their focus of attention. Should it be on the macro-level of the international
system or the micro-level of the national state? The answer will, of course,
vary both for different scholars and for the same scholars at different times.
Each approach, however, has certain advantages and weaknesses. These are
outlined in J. David Singer’s classic examination of the level-of-analysis prob-
lem in international relations. As well as warning of the dangers of moving
too easily from one level to another, Singer—whose subsequent work has
included a long-term project (the correlates of war) employing quantitative
approaches to the study of war—identifies some problems that occur when
focusing at each level.
Keeping Singer’s warning in mind, this section focuses not on the interna-
tional system as a whole but on the units operating within the system. Even
when one focuses on the unit level, however, there are still several outstanding
issues, the most important of which concern the nature of the major units or
actors. One possible focus is on the state and its major attributes as an actor
in international relations. It is equally important, however, to focus on the
decision-making process within states as well as the rise of non-state actors.

T H E S TAT E A S A C T O R

Although the nation-state emerged as the dominant actor in the international

system, to do so it had to triumph over several other forms of social and polit-
ical organization: the city-state, the empire, and feudalism.1 The contempo-
rary nation-state is characterized by jurisdiction over territory, a political and
administrative apparatus, and the state recognizes no higher constitutional
authority than itself.2
Although often treated as synonymous with in dependence, there is an
important difference: sovereignty is essentially a legal concept whereas indepen-
dence is a political matter. States can be formally sovereign even though they
may heavily depend on others in practice. At the same time, the principle of sov-
ereignty is essential to the functioning of the society of states and the mainte-
nance of international order. Once a state is recognized as a sovereign entity,
then others are obligated to refrain from intervention in its affairs. Indeed, the
counterpart to the notion of sovereignty is the norm of non-intervention.3
And although this norm is frequently breached, this cannot be done unless
extraordinary justifications or rationales are provided. Sovereignty does not
prevent intervention or interference in the internal affairs of states, but it does
at least inhibit this kind of activity.
The idea of the state as the dominant actor in international relations also
has an intellectual appeal—it leads to a focus on the capabilities of the state
and the interactions of states with one another. This approach, sometimes
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The Actors in International Politics 3

termed the billiard ball approach, has been elaborated most succinctly by
Arnold Wolfers, one of the major theorists of international relations in the
1950s and early 1960s, and is encapsulated in the short excerpt from his col-
lected works entitled Discord and Collaboration. One of the great strengths
of the billiard ball approach is parsimony; another is that it captures the con-
stants in state behavior—the concern with power and security—that tran-
scend the particular political incumbents at any one time. Yet, these
considerations have been seen in some quarters as the main weakness of an
exclusive focus on states as actors. Indeed, the most important source of the
challenge to state dominance as the predominant mode of discourse in inter-
national relations, has been a fundamental dissatisfaction with analysis which
treats the state as a unitary monolithic actor.

INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS AS ACTORS

One difficulty with an exclusive focus on the state is that this encourages reifi-
cation and ignores the existence of decision makers who act on behalf of the
state. Certain actions are attributed to France, to the United States, to Russia,
to Nigeria, or to Israel, for example, rather than to the governments and indi-
viduals who made the decisions and the organizations that implemented them.
One reaction to this focus was the development of the foreign policy decision-
making approach to the study of international politics. This began in the
1950s with the work of Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin.4 By focusing not on the
state as actor, but on those acting on behalf of the state, the decision-making
approach opened the way was open for a much fuller examination of politi-
cal, psychological, and sociological variables.
This is reflected in the selections we have chosen. The analysis by Ole R.
Holsti, a distinguished political scientist, highlights several challenges to the
dominant state as actor approach (which is also embedded in realism and neo-
realism). Holsti looks at liberal theories which emphasize that the issue-areas
facing states have broadened beyond the traditional issues of war and peace;
surveys world systems theory which emphasizes the capitalist economy rather
than the nation-state as the focus of attention; and highlights decision-making
perspectives which offer a more finely granulated approach to foreign policy
than does the state as actor perspective. As he puts it in the article we have
included in our selections, “decision-making models challenge the premise that
it is fruitful to conceptualize the nation as a unitary rational actor whose behav-
ior can adequately be conceptualized by reference to the system structure . . .
because individuals, groups and organizations acting in the name of the state
are also sensitive to pressures and constraints other than international ones,
including elite maintenance, electoral politics, public opinion, pressure group
activities, ideological preferences, and bureaucratic politics”. Holsti subse-
quently surveys three models of decision-making—individual, group dynamics,
and bureaucratic politics. Significantly, in some of his other work, he focused on
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4 The Actors in International Politics

cognitive dynamics and other psychological variables highlighting the ways in

which they impacted on foreign policy. Indeed, in the previous edition of this
volume we included a piece by Holsti showing how the views of the Soviet
Union held by Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, led him to
dismiss Soviet overtures as tricks rather than as serious offers to negotiate.5
If the emphasis by Hoslti and others on cognitive and psychological vari-
ables challenged the idea that states or governments act rationally and according
to simple calculations of costs and gains, this notion was contested even more
vigorously by Graham Allison, in a famous and often quoted article published in
the American Political Science Review in 1969 (parts of which are reproduced
here) and in his subsequent hook, Essence of Decision.6 In both of these studies,
Allison, who subsequently be came dean of the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard, disaggregated government, suggesting that concepts
based on the presumption of a single monolithic actor in rational pursuit of a
coherent set of objectives were fundamentally flawed. As an alternative to the
rational actor model of state behavior, Allison suggested two approaches. The
first was the organizational process model, a model that focused on organiza-
tional routines and argued that the implementation of policy could often be under-
stood only in terms of standard operational procedures developed and carried out
by large, complex bureaucratic organizations. The second was a governmental
politics model that emphasized that government consisted of multiple players in
particular positions in the bureaucracy. From this perspective, decisions are
reached as a result of an intense bargaining process in which the stance of the
participants is determined largely by their governmental or bureaucratic respon-
sibilities. Consequently, foreign policy decisions are not the product of rational
calculation about what is good for the state; rather, they are a compromise—and
sometimes compromised— product of the internal bargaining process.

T H E R I S E O F N O N - S TAT E A C T O R S

One of the underlying premises of the decision-making approach in its vari-

ous manifestations concerned the necessity of efforts to un-package the “black
box” of the state as actor. Another challenge to the dominance of the state-
centric model, however, came from critics who saw the focus on the state as
missing many aspects of international activity and ignoring not only non-state
actors but also other dimensions of international relations. Sonic of the selec-
tions we have reproduced here develop this theme.
Those who point to the emergence of non-state actors also tend to empha-
size the interconnections between the international economic system and the
international political system. They also argue that many of the new transna-
tional actors in international relations, whether terrorist groups or economic
corporations, are rarely under the control of nation-states. This is not to ignore
the support that terrorist groups receive from certain states; nor is it to deny
that many of the corporations with far-flung economic activities are based
predominantly in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe. It is simply to
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The Actors in International Politics 5

note that such groups and corporations act not only independently of the host
government but, on occasion, even against the will of this government.
The rise of non-state actors such as multinational corporations is part of a
broader pattern discussed by Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert largely in
terms of the growth of complex interdependencies in the international system.
As the selection makes clear, the basic premise of these authors is that “individ-
uals and groups become functionally linked as they discover that they share
common interests and common needs that transcend existing organizational
frontiers.” From this, they go on to argue that the inability of nation-states to
satisfy the demands of their populations or to cope with problems not solely
under their jurisdiction, is partly the result of the growing expectations of these
populations and partly the result of “the growing complexity and specializa-
tion of functional systems.” Not surprisingly, therefore, other actors have
emerged to complement and supplement the activities of the nation-state. In
this selection, six types of international actor are identified by the authors, who
contend that the traditional stare-centric model of the international system
needs to he replaced by what they call the “complex conglomerate system.”
One of the categories identified by Manshach, Ferguson, and Lampert is that
of the “interstate governmental actor.” This encompasses such regional security
organizations as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as global actors
like the United Nations. International organizations are the subject of the article
by Michael N Barnett and Martha Finnemore, parts of which we have excerpted
in this section. In some respects, the analysis by Barnett and Finnemore incorpo-
rates an imaginative extension of the bureaucratic politics model enunciated by
Graham Allison, while developing a novel and unconventional approach to the
analysis of international organizations. Unlike many analysts of international
relations, they do not simply extol the virtues of organizations such as the United
Nations. On the contrary, they use an approach based on sociological institution-
alism to explain the power of international organizations—which they see as far
greater than do most liberal institutionalists—as well as their capacity for dys-
functional or pathological behavior. In their view, international organizations can
exercise power independently of the states that created them. Yet some of the
things that help to endow international organizations with power also create
pathologies that inhibit or distort the way power is exercised.
Another kind of non-state actor—the transnational advocacy network—is
discussed in the excerpt from the work of Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sickink.
These authors focus on what they describe as a subset of issues “characterized
by the prominence of principled ideas and a central role for nongovernmental
organizations” which tend to form transnational networks to maximize their
impact. The global movement to ban land-mines, the work of NGOs to com-
bat trafficking in women and children, and the transnational activities of envi-
ronmental activists are all examples of the kind of networks on which Keck
and Sickink focus. Indeed, they explain why these transnational networks have
emerged and explore the techniques and strategies they use.
Overall, this section highlights the diversity of approaches and key con-
troversies about what the primary focus of attention should he in terms of
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6 The Actors in International Politics

identifying and analyzing international actors. Several observations can he

made about this issue. First, diversity of approach should he regarded primar-
ily as a sign of intellectual health in the discipline. International relations is a
vast and complex subject that can be fully understood only through a variety
of analyses with different approaches and emphases.
Second, and following on from this, different approaches should not be
regarded as mutually exclusive. International relations continues to be domi-
nated both by states and by a variety of non-state actors. Many transnational
interactions are not under the control of states but will nevertheless be affected
by decisions taken by states. Conversely, the state in turn will be affected by the
actions of other actors and by the complex web of transnational interactions
that has become an increasingly important element in international relations.
Third, it is worth emphasizing that not all these non-state actors are
benign. Keck and Sickink focus on transnational advocacy networks that are
part of global civil society; it is equally important to focus on transnational
criminal and terrorist networks which are part of an uncivil society, are malev-
olent in intent, and impact adversely on international security and stability.
Not all Hobbesian or Machiavellian actors are states, and not all non-state
actors adhere to Kantian or Grotian principles. It would be a mistake, there-
fore, for liberal institutionalists to assume that non-state or sovereignty-free
actors are always positive in intent or effect. Indeed the impact of the transna-
tional advocacy networks could well be outweighed by the impact of subter-
ranean networks which challenge global norms, undermine global governance,
and seek to neutralize rather than mobilize the power of states.
The fourth observation concerns the other challenge to the state-centric
model: a focus on decision making by governments and policymakers.
Although this approach has illuminated both psychological and organizational
variables, which often have a profound impact on foreign policy, it is worth
emphasizing that those who act on behalf of states are compelled to fulfill cer-
tain roles and responsibilities. One difficulty with the governmental politics
model of Graham Allison is that it largely ignores the imperatives that propel
decision-making groups toward agreement. Moreover, Allison’s bureaucratic
politics model, in effect, replaces the rational statesman who attempts to maxi-
mize the interests of the state in the international game with a rational bureau-
crat who attempts to maximize personal and organizational interests in the
domestic governmental game. While it would be foolish to deny that calcula-
tions of domestic political advantage often intrude into the foreign policy pro-
cess, it is equally foolish to ignore the pressures from the international system
or the responsibility upon policymakers to act as the custodians of state inter-
ests in the international strategic game. Policymakers in international politics,
for example, cannot he oblivious to challenges to national security. This
imposes a degree of uniformity on states or those who act on their behalf
regardless of their personal preferences and predilections.7 As the reader exam-
ines the selections dealing with the nature of the actors in international rela-
tions, the extent to which these actors have to respond to their environment
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Towards a New Conceptualization of Global Politics 7

should be borne in mind. The nature of that environment and the patterns of
conflict and cooperation within it are explored more fully in Section IV.

Notes
1. For a fuller analysis, see Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Polities
(Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1981).
2. Alan James, Sovereign Statehood (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986)
3. This is developed in John Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).
4. R. C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, and B. M. Sapin, Foreign Policy Decision-Making: An
Approach to the Study of International Politics (New York: Free Press, 1962).
5. A similar approach was also used to study other decision-makers. See, for example,
Harvey Starr, Henry Kissinger: Perceptions of International Politics (Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 1984).
6. Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston:
L Brown, J 971).
7. This issue is examined in a very interesting way in Arnold Wolfers, Discord and
Collaboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), Pp. 3—24.

23

RICHARD MANSBACH,
YALE H. FERGUSON, AND
DONALD E. LAMPERT

Towards a New
Conceptualization
of Global Politics

THE EMERGENCE AND DISAPPEARANCE

OF ACTORS
Individuals and groups become functionally linked as they discover that they share
common interests and common needs that transcend existing organizational fron-
tiers. They may then develop common views and even cooperative approaches to
the problems that they confront. The complexity of contemporary modes of

Source: From The Web of World Politics: Nonstate Actors in the Global System (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976), pp. 32–45. © 1976. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
TL_Williams 3/16/05 6:42 PM Page 8

8 The Actors in International Politics

industrial production, for example, may generate a linkage between business

firms in different countries that depend upon each other for raw materials,
parts, expertise, or marketing facilities. Industrialists in several countries may
discover that they share problems with which they can cope more effectively
by pooling their resources; they may seek, for instance, common tax and pric-
ing policies from the governments of the states in which they reside. In the
course of collaborating, their common or complementary interests may grow
and deepen beyond mere economic expediency. “There is,” argues Werner
Feld, “an emotive side to such efforts which produces in the staff members
concerned with collaboration a distinct feeling of being involved in a ‘united
or cooperative’ endeavor.”1
When one begins to identify the many functional systems that link men,
the world appears “like millions of cobwebs superimposed one upon another,
covering the whole globe.”2 Functional systems themselves tend to be interde-
pendent and related to each other in complex ways. Each system requires the
existence of others to perform effectively; in this respect systems, too, may be
said to be linked. In J. W. Burton’s words:
Linked systems create clusters that tend to be concentrated geographically. . . .
Linked systems tend to consolidate into administrative units. . . . Once con-
solidated . . . linked systems and their administrative controls acquire an iden-
tity and a legitimized status within their environment.3

From this perspective, governments of nation-states may be seen as func-

tional (administrative) systems whose central function since the seventeenth
century has been to regulate and manage clusters of other functional systems.
More accurately perhaps, in their function as administrators for many func-
tional systems, states have been essentially multifunctional actors organizing
collective efforts toward objectives which could not be realized by individuals
in their private capacity. The boundaries of nation-states have tended to coin-
cide with the boundaries of other functional systems, and therefore political
frontiers have seemed to represent “marked discontinuities in the frequency of
transactions and marked discontinuities in the frequency of responses.”4 States
were able to control and limit the transactions which crossed their frontiers as
well as those that occurred within their borders. As long as states remained
relatively impermeable, they were able, for example, to regulate the economic
or cultural relations of their citizens with those living abroad and with foreign
nationals.
The question of human loyalties is not one that can be settled once and
for all; loyalties constantly shift as men perceive that their interests and aspi-
rations are more fully represented by new groups. As Arnold Wolfers noted
some years ago, “attention must be focused on the individual human beings
for whom identification is a psychological event.”5 To the degree that human
loyalties are divided between states and other groups, the latter can become
significant global actors.
Several major trends have contributed to these developments.
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Towards a New Conceptualization of Global Politics 9

The proliferation and increasing potential destructiveness of thermonu-

clear weapons have made the prospect of war between the superpowers
“unthinkable” and have contributed to the erosion of the great postwar
ideological blocs.
Conventional military force and intervention have become less effective in
coping with certain problems, as evidenced by the French defeat in Algeria
and the American debacle in Vietnam.
As nuclear and conventional warfare have become more expensive to con-
template and less effective, new means of gaining infiuence, including
guerrilla warfare, political terrorism, economic boycott, and political pro-
paganda, have become more common, thereby permitting actors lacking
the traditional instruments of power to exercise considerable influence
and enjoy considerable autonomy.
Even more frightening is the possibility that such actors may gain access
to modern technology.

In addition, the diminution of the central ideological cleavage, the resurgence

of Europe, China, and Japan, and the independence of a multitude of small
and poor nation-states in Africa and Asia have led to the emergence of other
cleavages, some global and many of a regional and local scope, and have there-
fore encouraged the “regionalization” or “localization” of international con-
flict. “The structure of the international system,” Jorge Domínguez declares,
“has been transformed through a process of fragmentation of the linkages of
the center of the system to its peripheries and of those between the continental
subsystems of the peripheries.”8 The new conflicts that have surfaced revolve
around questions such as national self-determination, local border adjust-
ment, economic inequality and exploitation, and racial or ethnic discrimina-
tion. These are questions that encourage the shifting of people’s loyalties away
from institutions that formerly held their affections.
At root, the twentieth-century emergence of new actors in the global sys-
tem reflects the inability of territorially-limited nation-states to respond to,
cope with, or suppress changing popular demands.
◆ Popular demands can be suppressed (and often are) by existing authori-
ties; they can be fulfilled by them
◆ Or they can lead to the emergence of new political structures designed
to fulfill them.
Thus, when a state can no longer guarantee the defense of its subjects, it may
be conquered and eliminated as happened to eighteenth-century Poland.
Conversely, the integration of existing units, like the merger of two corpora-
tions, or the creation of new nation-state actors such as the United States in
1776, Biafra (temporarily) in 1968, and Bangladesh in 1971, are partly the
consequence of demands for a more capable and responsive performance of
certain tasks—demands that were neither suppressed nor fulfilled.
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10 The Actors in International Politics

Today the global system is complexly interdependent owing in part to

improved communications and transportation. People’s lives are being
touched and affected ever more profoundly by decisions made outside their
own national states. Their demands for justice, equality, prosperity, and inde-
pendence tend to increase and further tax the capacity of existing nation-
states. We are in the midst of a revolution of “rising expectations” in which
the achievements of people in one corner of the system generate demands for
similar achievements elsewhere. When these demands remain unanswered,
they may lead to intense frustration. Thus, the frustration of large numbers of
Arabs at continued Israeli occupation of Palestine and the failure of Arab gov-
ernments to satisfy their claims have led to the creation of Palestinian terrorist
and liberation groups, the organization and behavior of which are in part pat-
terned after successful movements in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam.
In the contemporary world demands such as those for defense, full
employment, or social reform place overwhelming burdens on the resources
of poor states. Others, increasingly, are beyond the capacity of any single
nation-state to fulfill. As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye observe:
It is clear that most if not all governments will find it very difficult to cope
with many aspects of transnational relations in the decade of the 1970s and
thereafter. . . . Outer space, the oceans, and the internationalization of pro-
duction are only three of the most obvious areas in which intergovernmental
control may be demanded in the form of new international laws or new orga-
nizations or both.9

One way in which national governments may seek to deal with transnational
pressures is through the creation of specialized intergovernmental actors which
acquire limited global roles. The emergence of regional agencies and organizations
and those associated with the United Nations attests to the growth of large-scale
functional systems with their own administrative overseers. Such organizations
reinforce pre-existing linkages or create new ones.10 Intergovernmental organiza-
tions that have achieved some measure of autonomy, however, are often engaged
in highly technical and relatively nonpolitical tasks. In those areas where govern-
ments resist transnational pressures, other groups may emerge.

G L O B A L TA S K S

There are at least four general types of tasks that can be performed by actors:
1. Physical protection or security which involves the protection of men
and their values from coercive deprivation either by other members
within the group or by individuals or groups outside it.
2. Economic development and regulation which comprise activities that
are intended to overcome the constraints imposed on individual or
collective capacity for self-development and growth by the scarcity or
distribution of material resources.
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Towards a New Conceptualization of Global Politics 11

3. Residual public interest tasks which involve activities that are

designed to overcome constraints other than economic, such as dis-
ease or ignorance, that restrict individual or collective capacity for
self-development and growth.
4. Group status which refers to the provision of referent identification
through collective symbols that bind the individual to others, provide
him with psychological and emotional security, and distinguish him
in some manner from others who are not members of the group. Such
symbols are often grounded in ethnicity, nationality, class, religion,
and kinship.

The behavior of actors in the global system involves the performance of one
or more of the foregoing tasks in cooperation or competition with other actors
responding to the actual or anticipated demands of their “constituencies.”
Although governments of nation-states customarily perform these tasks
“domestically,” tasks become relevant at the “international” level when a
government acts to protect its citizens from externally-imposed change or to
adapt them to such change. For example, the regulation of the domestic econ-
omy to create and sustain full employment is not itself an internationally-rele-
vant task. When, however, tariffs are imposed on imports or the currency is
devalued, the behavior acquires significance for the global system. Others out-
side the state are affected and made to bear the burdens of the “domestic”
economic adjustment.
The increasing size and complexity of systems and institutions threaten
individuals with a sense of helplessness in a world dominated by large imper-
sonal forces where rapid change and “future shock” are common. Many small
and new nation-states are only barely (if at all) able to provide physical secu-
rity, economic satisfaction, or social welfare for their citizens. On the other
hand, often they do provide their citizens with an emotionally-comforting
sense of national identity and “in-group” unity. In this respect these states (as
well as some nonstate units) can be seen as rather specialized actors in an
increasingly interdependent world.12

The Panoply of Global Actors

We can identify at least six types of actors in the contemporary global system.
The first type is the interstate governmental actor (IGO) composed of gov-
ernmental representatives from more than one state. Sometimes known as
“international” or “supranational” organizations, depending upon their
degree of autonomy, they include as members two or more national govern-
ments. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of such orga-
nizations has increased even more rapidly than has the number of
nation-states.13 Examples of this type of actor include military alliances such
as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, universal organizations such as the League of
Nations or the United Nations, and special purpose organizations such as the
TL_Williams 3/16/05 6:42 PM Page 12

12 The Actors in International Politics

European Economic Community (EEC) and the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
In 1972 there were at least 280 such actors in the international system.14

Second Type of Actor (Sample Three Head)

A second type is the interstate nongovernmental actor. Sometimes referred to
as “transnational” or “crossnational,” this type of actor encompasses individ-
uals who reside in several nation-states but who do not represent any of the
governments of these states. According to the Yearbook of International
Organizations, there were at least 2,190 such organizations in 1972 as com-
pared to under 1,000 in 1958.15 These groups are functionally diverse and
include religious groups such as the International Council of Jewish Women,
the Salvation Army, and the World Muslim Congress; trade unions such as the
Caribbean Congress of Labor and the World Confederation of Labor; and
social welfare organizations such as the International Red Cross or Kiwanis
International. (The Yearbook may, in fact, not include the most significant of
these groups because it omits multinational corporations and terrorist and
revolutionary groups.) While many of these actors seek to avoid involvement
in politically-sensitive questions, some behave autonomously and do become
so embroiled. This is illustrated by the role of the International Red Cross in
the Nigerian-Biafran civil war16 and the confiict culminating in 1968 between
Standard of New Jersey’s subsidiary, the International Petroleum Corporation,
and the government of Peru. The multinational corporation in particular is
becoming a major transnational actor, rendering more obsolete the state-cen-
tric model of international interaction.17

ANOTHER TYPE OF ACTOR (SAMPLE FOUR HEAD)

A third type of actor is commonly known as the nation-state. It consists of

personnel from the agencies of a single central government. Though often
regarded as unified entities, national governments are often more usefully
identified in terms of their parts such as ministries and legislatures. On occa-
sion, the “parts” may behave autonomously with little reference to other gov-
ernment bureaucracies. “The apparatus of each national government,”
declares Graham Allison, “constitutes a complex arena for the intranational
game.”18 The ministries that make up large governments bargain with each
other and regularly approach “national questions with parochial or particu-
larist views; each may view the “national interest” from a different stand-
point. For instance, it has been alleged that the American Central Intelligence
Agency has, on occasion, formulated and carried out policy independently
and without the complete knowledge or approval of elected officials.
No More Actors There is the governmental noncentral actor com-
posed of personnel from regional, parochial, or municipal governments within
a single state or of colonial officials representing the state. Such parochial
bureaucracies and officials generally are only peripherally concerned with
world politics or, at most, have an indirect impact on the global political system.
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Towards a New Conceptualization of Global Politics 13

TABLE 1 The Realist Paradigm and Integrationist Findings

Assumptions of Political Findings of Integration

Realism as Applied to
International Relations
States and nation-states
are the only consequential
actors in international
relations
International relations
results from foreign policies
directed toward enhancing
national security
International relations are
fundamentally conflict
processes played out in
zero-sum matrices
Studies in the 1950s Impacts on the Discipline
and 1960s of International Relations
States and nation-states Orthodoxy was brought into
are not the only question
consequential actors in
international relations
International relations Orthodoxy was brought into
result from foreign question and theoretical
policies directed toward analyses were initiated
enhancing national
welfare
International relations Orthodoxy was brought into
are fundamentally question and theoretical and
collaborative processes empirical inquiries were
played out in positive inititated
sum matrices

Source: From R. L. Merritt and Bruce M. Russett (eds.)., From National Development to Global
Community (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), p. 149.

Occasionally, however, they have a direct impact when they serve as the core
of secessionist movements or when they establish and maintain direct contact
with other actors. In this context, the provincial officials of Katanga, Biafra,
and in the 1860’s the American South come to mind.
A fifth type is the intrastate nongovernmental actor consisting of non-
governmental groups or individuals located primarily within a single state.
Again, this type of actor is generally thought of as subject to the regulation of
a central government, at least in matters of foreign policy. Yet, such groups,
ranging from philanthropic organizations and political parties to ethnic com-
munities, labor unions, and industrial corporations may, from time to time,
conduct relations directly with autonomous actors other than their own gov-
ernment. In this category, we find groups as disparate as the Ford Foundation,
Oxfam, the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities, the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, the Jewish Agency, and the Irish Republican Army.
Finally, individuals in their private capacity are, on occasion, able to
behave autonomously in the global arena. Such “international” individuals
were more common before the emergence of the nation-state, particularly as
diplomatic or military mercenaries. More recently, one might think of the
American industrialist Andrew Carnegie who willed ten million dollars for
“the speedy abolition of war between the so-called civilized nations,” the
Swedish soldier Count Gustaf von Rosen who was responsible for creating a
Biafran air force during the Nigerian civil war, or the Argentine revolutionary
Ché Guevara.
Figure 2 relates actors to the tasks mentioned above and suggests the range
of actors that exist in the global system and the principal tasks they perform.
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14 The Actors in International Politics

Figure 2 Actors Defined by Membership and Principal Task

physical public group

protection economic interest status
interstate British
governmental NATO GATT WHO Commonwealth

interstate Royal
nongovernmental Al Fatah Dutch International Comintern
Petroleum

nation-state Turkish Cypriot U. S.

Government Dept. of HEW Biafra
Officials Commerce

governmental
noncentral Confederacy Katanga New York City Quebec

intrastate Jewish
nongovernmental Defense CARE Ford Ibo tribe
League Foundation

individual Gustav von Rosen Jean Monnet Andrew Carnegie Dalai Lama

The entries in the matrix are illustrative and indicate that these actors at some
point in time have performed these functions in ways relevant for the global
system. Some categories may have many representatives; others only a few.

T H E C O M P L E X C O N G L O M E R AT E S Y S T E M

Our analysis up to this point enables us to return to the question of the struc-
ture and processes of the global political system. The contemporary global
system defies many conventional descriptions of its structure as bipolar, multi-
polar, or balance of power.19 These descriptions account only for the number
of states and their distribution of power. “In particular,” declares Oran Young,
“it seems desirable to think increasingly in terms of world systems that are
heterogeneous with respect to types of actor (i.e. mixed actor systems) in the
analysis of world politics.”20
We propose an alternative model of the contemporary global system
which we shall call the complex conglomerate system.21 The concept of “con-
glomerate” refers to “a mixture of various materials or elements clustered
together without assimilation.”22 In economics the term is used to describe
the grouping of firms of different types under a single umbrella of corporate
leadership.
Figure 3 further suggests the range of alignments that characterize the
complex conglomerate system.
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Towards a New Conceptualization of Global Politics 15

Figure 3

interstate govern- intrastate

interstate non- mental non-
govern- govern- nation- non- govern-
mental mental state central mental individual

interstate UN– EEC– Arab Grand Mufti

govern- UN–NATO International Francophone OAU– League– of Jerusalem–
mental (1950) Red Cross African Biafra Al Arab
(Palestine) states Fatah League

interstate UN– Shell ITT–

non- International Oil– USSR– IBM– Allende Sun-Yat sen–
govern- Red Cross ESSO Comintern Scotland opposition Comintern
mental (Palestine) (1972) (1920’s) (Chile)

EEC– North
nation- Francophone USSR– “traditional Belgium– Vietnam– U.S.–
state African Comintern alliances” Katanga Viet James
states (1920’s) (NATO) (1960) Cong Donovan

govern- Algerian rebels South

mental non- OAU- IBM– Belgium– N.Y. Mayor– –French African
central Biafra Scotland Katanga Moscow Mayor Socialists mercenaries–
(1960) (1973) (1954) Katanga

Communist
intrastate Arab North Ulster– Party-USSR– George
non- League– ITT–Allende Vietnam– Protestant Communist Grivas–
govern- Al Opposition Viet Vanguard Party-German Greek
mental Fatah (Chile) Cong (1970) Democratic Cypriots
Republic

South African George Louis of Conde

Grand Mufti Sun-Yat-sen– U.S.–James mercenaries–- Grivas– –Gaspard de
individual of Jerusalem– Comintern Donovan Katanga Greek Coligny
Arab League (1960) Cypriots (1562)

In summary, we should stress that the complex conglomerate system

exhibits several other characteristics in addition to the primary one relating to
the existence of many autonomous actors of different types and their group-
ing into diffuse, flexible, and situationally-specific alignments.

NOTES
1. Werner Feld, “Political Aspects of Transnational Business Collaboration in the
Common Market,” International Organization 24:2 (Spring 1970), p. 210. For an
elaboration of the thesis that transnationalism promotes complementary views
among elites, see Robert C. Angell, Peace on the March (New York: Van Nostrand,
1969).
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16 The Actors in International Politics

2. J. W. Burton, Systems, States, Diplomacy and Rules (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1968), pp. 8–9.
3. Ibid., p. 8.
4. Karl W. Deutsch, “External Influences on the Internal Behavior of States,” in
R. Barry Farrell, ed., Approaches to Comparative and International Politics
(Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), p. 15.
5. Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
1962), p. 23.
6. Burton, Systems, p. 10.
7. See Oran R. Young, “The Actors in World Politics,” in James N. Rosenau, Vincent
Davis, and Maurice A. East, eds., The Analysis of International Politics (New
York: Free Press, 1972), p. 132.
8. Jorge I. Domínguez, “Mice that Do Not Roar: Some Aspects of International
Politics in the World’s Peripheries,” International Organization 25:2 (Spring
1971), p. 208.
9. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Transnational Relations and World
Politics: An Introduction,” in Keohane and Nye, eds. “Transnational Relations
and World Politics,” special edition of International Organization 25:3 (Summer
1971), p. 348.
10. For a summary of many contemporary intergovernmental organizations, see John
Paxton, ed., The Statesman’s Yearbook 1973–1974 (London: Macmillan, 1973),
pp. 3–61; and Richard P. Stebbins and Alba Amoia, eds., Political Handbook and
Atlas of the World 1970 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), pp. 437–513.
11. For an explanation of the difference between “collective” and “private” goods,
see Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1965).
12. Occasionally, states may fail to provide even group status for inhabitants. Thus, in
1969–1970, it appeared that guerrilla organizations such as Al Fatah were largely
providing physical protection and group states for many Palestinians in Jordan.
When one prominent guerrilla leader was asked why his commandos permitted
Jordan’s King Hussein to remain on the throne and did not themselves seize the
reins of government, he replied: “We don’t want to have to take care of sewers and
stamp the passports.” Eric Pace, “The Violent Men of Amman,” The New York
Times Magazine, 19 July 1970, p. 42.