Frederic S. Pearson

Geographic Proximity and Foreign Military Intervention

Proceeding from assumptions about interests and costs, two basic questions about the relation of foreign military intervention and geographic proximity are examined: (1) whether various types of intervening countries usually send troops to distant or nearby states; (2) whether certain types of military intervention are more likely to occur near to or far from the intervener. Data on categories of foreign military intervention in all regions from 1948-1967 were collected from the New York Times, regional chronologies, and scholarly accounts. Analysis of these, along with geographic distance data shows: (1) large powers were most likely to intervene far from home and rarely intervened close by; (2) small and middle powers were most likely to undertake intervention hostile to the target government; (3) hostile interventions in domestic disputes were rare, and hostile military interventions abroad generally were close to the interveners capital; (4) the bulk of distant interventions were friendly to target and occurred when intervening country had power advantage over target country; (5) interveners power disadvantage did not necessarily deter friendly or hostile interventions in nearby states; (6) large and small power interventions seemed related to regional power balance and ideological interests, but European great powers were concerned with economic interests, and small powers were more likely than large to intervene for territorial or social interests; (7) there was little consistent relation between contiguity and military intervention probability.

Dimensions of Conflict Resolution in Ethnopolitical Disputes

In this introduction to the special issue, the various dimensions of approaches to conflict resolution in identity disputes are explored. The implementation of existing peace accords in countries troubled by domestic fighting turns out to be a knottier policy problem than expected and subject to lingering distrust and miscommunication. The role of two sets of factors in bringing about agreement and/or implementation is explored: grass-roots versus elite initiatives and the identity versus instrumental nature of the negotiations. Factors such as the degree of preliminary dialogue and pre-bargaining, the involvement of officials versus civic representatives, concern about fear and distrust may be weighed against the more usual calculations of power balances, exhaustion, and stalemate in accounting for peaceful settlements. The interplay between these categories has a great deal to do with the prospects and outcomes of conflict management approaches and is the subject of the articles to follow. The studies were designed to test, utilizing a comparative case-study framework, which dimension, if any, turns out to be most influential in a series of local violent ethnopolitical disputes. Findings, while varied, point to the importance of grass-roots participation in the negotiation process.

The Correlates of Arms Importation

The basic question of why nations import arms is addressed by identifying clusters of variables most closely correlated with arms import levels, both for the worlds aggregate of countries and by region. From prior impressionistic studies of arms transfers a set of six hypothesized clusters is proposed, entailing: (1) national characteristics such as geography and population; (2) governmental characteristics such as regime type; (3) military characteristics such as defense expenditures; (4) economic characteristics such as degree of wealth and level of trade; (5) international conflict involvements; and (6) international political alignment and alliance entanglements. Each of these is measured with data from Kidron & Smiths, The War Atlas, supplemented by ACDAs, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, and by scholarly studies. The cluster with the largest impact on arms import levels consisted of military variables, especially budgetary expenditures and nuclear status. Economic and alignment variables were next in overall importance, followed by conflict involvement; national characteristics and regime type had very little influence. The inertial nature of arms importation was indicated by the high correlation between 1970s and 1980s import levels. Size of the military, levels of military expenditure, and war involvement in the 1980s had the strongest association with Latin arms acquisition, while military spending and nuclear potential dominated for the Middle East. In East Asia and the Pacific, beginning levels of indigenous weapons production and relatively low defense expenditures were associated with imports, while the impact of South Africa caused African import levels to be highly related to wealth, armed force size, and war involvements. In Europe, bloc politics and the presence of foreign bases constituted the main correlates of arms importation. The findings imply the need to control militarization if the global arms trade is to be contained.

International military interventions: Identification and classification

International military intervention is the movement of troops or forces of one country into the territory or territorial waters of another country, or military action by troops already stationed by...

Energy crisis and government regulations: Swedish and Dutch responses in 1973

Industrially developed and trade dependent states may be especially hard hit by international economic crises. It appears that such states’ governmental response to crises will depend on: traditions of economic planning; international trade and political connections; political pressures within the state; and traditions of business‐government relations. These factors determine the mix of direct planned government intervention, reliance on private industry, or disjointed bureaucratic regulations in crisis. Sweden and Holland utilized all three approaches during the 1973–74 oil crisis. The Swedish government intervened more directly and the Dutch relied more on multinational oil companies and a series of ad hoc regulations. The Netherlands’ greater diplomatic and economic leverage conditioned the somewhat less assertive government response.