The Transformation of Foreign Policies:Modernization,Interdependence,and STOR Externalization Edward L.Morse World Politics,Vol.22,No.3.(Apr.,1970),pp.371-392 Stable URL: http://links.istor.org/sici?sici=0043-8871%28197004%2922%3A3%3C371%3ATTOFPM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A World Politics is currently published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use,available at http://www.istor org/about/terms.html.JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides,in part,that unless you have obtained prior permission,you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles,and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal,non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work.Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.istor.org/journals/ihup.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world.The Archive is supported by libraries,scholarly societies,publishers, and foundations.It is an initiative of JSTOR,a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology.For more information regarding JSTOR,please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org Sat Sep820:56:022007
The Transformation of Foreign Policies: Modernization, Interdependence, and Externalization Edward L. Morse World Politics, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Apr., 1970), pp. 371-392. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-8871%28197004%2922%3A3%3C371%3ATTOFPM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A World Politics is currently published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/jhup.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org Sat Sep 8 20:56:02 2007
THE TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICIES Modernization,Interdependence,and Externalization By EDWARD L.MORSE* Nolyhasadicallytransomed bythe tionary processes of modernization not only in the socicties com- posing the Atlantic region,but wherever high levels of modernization cxist.There is a quality about modernization that dissolves the effects of what have generally been considered the major determinants of foreign policy,whether these determinants are based on idcology and type of political system (democratic versus totalitarian foreign policies, for example),or power and capability (great-power versus small- power policics).Wherever modernized socicties exist,their foreign policies are more similar to each other than they are to the foreign policies of nonmodernized societies,regardless of the scale of the society or its type of government. Both the intcrnational and the domestic settings in which foreign policies are formulated and conducted are subjected to continual and revolutionary transformation once high levels of modernization exist. Internationally,modernization is accompanied by increascd levels and types of interdependencies among national socicties.Domestically,it is associated with increased centralization of governmental institutions and governmental decision-making as well as with incrcased priorities for domestic rather than for external needs. As a result of these transformations,thrce gcneral sets of conditions have developed.First,the ideal and classical distinctions between for- eign and domestic affairs have broken down,even though the myths associated with sovereignty and the state have not.Second,the dis- tinction between "high policies"(those associated with security and the continued existence of the state)and "low policies"(those pertain- ing to the wealth and welfare of the citizens)has become less important as low policies have assumed an increasingly large role in any society. Third,although there have been significant developments in the in- *I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the support given me by the Center of International Studies of Princeton University in the preparation of this article
372 WORLD POLITICS strumentalities of political control,the actual ability to control events either internal or external to modernized societies-even those that are Great Powers--has dccreased with the growth of interdependence,and is likely to decrease further. MODERNIZATION AND FOREIGN POLICY The notion that modernization has a revolutionary effect on foreign policy is not a new one.Comte and Spencer,for example,among other optimistic observers of industrialization in the nineteenth century,tried to demonstrate the irrationality of war as an instrument of policy in the relations among highly developed countries.On the other hand,Hob- son,Lenin,and others who surveyed industrialization and linked it to the"new imperialism"of the late nincteenth century found that what they understood as modernization would lead to conflict among the same socicties. The view of modernization that underlies the conccpt of forcign policy in this essay owes little to such theorics of cconomic determinism and little to the normative biases held by those writers.Moreover, it is not concerned with what happens in a society,and,consequently, to the foreign policy of its government,during the various phases of modernization.Rathcr,it acknowledges that the development of levels associated with"high modernization"carries with it implications for forcign policy.Once high mass-consumption levels are reached in a society and once high levels of interdependence among modernized so- cietics exist,several common features of foreign policy appear that can be discussed in general terms and that pertain to democratic and non- democratic political systcms alike. The implications of modernization for foreign policy can be derived from many of the definitions of modernization that have bcen formu- lated.I have chosen to follow Levy's definition becausc of its power in isolating those socicties in which I am interested.It is based on two variables:"the uses of inanimate sources of power and the usc of tools to multiply the effect of effort."Each of these variables is conceived as a continuum,so that"a society will be considered more or less modern- ized to the extent that its members use inanimate sources of power and/or tools to multiply the cffects of their efforts."2 Accordingly, "Among the members of relatively modernized societies,uses of inan- imate sources of power not only predominate,but they predominate in Marion J.Levy,Jr.Modernization and the Structure of Societies (Princeton 1g66), I 21bd
TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICIES 373 such a way that it is almost impossible to envisage any considerable de- parture in the direction of the uses of animate sources of power without the most far-reaching changes of the entire system.The multiplication of effort by application of tools is high and the rate is probably increas- ing exponentially." Only a few such societies have existed in history,and they all reached high levels of modernization during the nineteenth or twentieth cen- turics.Those for which the generalizations in this essay are germane include the fourteen socicties identified by Russett and others as "high mass-consumption"societies.They are all modern democracies.There is no logical reason to assume,however,that the foreign policies of nondemocratic modernized societies would not also be subsumed by these generalizations. The gencral characteristics of modernized societies include the growth of knowledge about and control over the physical environment; increased political centralization,accompanicd by the growth of spe- cialized bureaucratic organizations and by the politicization of the masses;the production of economic surpluses and wealth generalized over an entire population;urbanization;and the psychological adjust- ment to change and the flceting,rather than acccptance of the static and permanent.3 The achievement of high levels of modernization has also been asso- ciated with the growth of nationalism and the idcalization of the nation-state as the basic political unit.The consolidation of the nation- state,however,is the central political enigma of contemporary inter- national affairs,for modernization has also been accompanied by trans- national structures that cannot be subjected to the control of isolated national political bodics.Thesc structurcs exist in the military field, where security in the nuclear age has everywhere become increasingly a function of activities pursued outside the state's borders.Thcy also exist in the economic field,where the welfare not only of the members of various societies,but of the societies themselves,increasingly relies upon the maintenance of stable commercial and monetary arrange- ments that are independent of any single national government. The confrontation of the political structures that have developed a Ibid.,85. +See Bruce M.Russett and others,World Handbook of Political and Social Indi- cators (New Haven 1g64),298.These fourteen societies are the Netherlands,West Germany,France,Denmark,Norway,the United Kingdom,Belgium,New Zealand, Australia,Sweden,Luxembourg,Switzerland,Canada,and the United States. s These five characteristics are adopted from Cyril E.Black,The Dynamics of Modernization:A Study in Comparative History (New York 1g67),934
374 WORLD POLITICS along the lines of the nation-state with these transnational activities is one of the most significant features of contemporary international politics.Modernization has resulted in the integration of individual national socicties,which facc problems that can be solved in isolation with decreasing reliability.In other words,modernization has trans formed not only the domestic setting in which foreign policy is formu- lated;by creating higher levels of interdependence among the diverse national societies,it has also transformed the general structures of inter- national society. FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLITICS The fundamental distinction that breaks down under modernization is between foreign and domestic policies,at least in ideal terms.This distinction is much more characteristic of the forcign policies of non- modernized societies in both idcal and actual terms than it is of mod- ernized states.In modernized societies,it is difficult to maintain becausc both predominantly political and predominantly nonpolitical inter- actions take place across socicties at high levels,and because trans- national phenomena are so significant that either territorial and political or the jurisdictional boundarics are extremcly difficult to define.The whole constellation of activities associated with moderniza- tion blurs the distinction so that an observer must analyze carefully any interaction in order to ascertain in what ways it pertains to foreign and domestic affairs. Foreign policics can be analytically distinguished from domestic policies.Foreign policies are,at a minimum,manifestly oriented to some actual or potential sphcre external to a political system,i.e,to some sphere outside the jurisdiction or control of the polity.Domestic policies,on the contrary,are oriented to some sphcre within the juris- diction and control of the polity.Foreign policics may be addressed principally to some domestic interest group,but as long as they carry some minimum intention and recognition of an external orientation they are considered foreign policies. Classical distinctions between foreign and domestic policies are more normatively based and break down once societies become fairly mod- ernized.Two sorts of classical distinctions exist.Onc,which underlies the Rankean tradition of the primacy of foreign policy,stresses the special significancc foreign policies carry that other policies do not. This significance is the concern of foreign policy with the existence and security of a society:"The position of a state in the world depends on the degree of independence it has attained.It is obliged,therefore
TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICIES 375 to organize all its internal resources for the purpose of self-preservation. This is the supreme law of the state." The other tradition is the democratic one,which also is normative and which stresses the primacy of domestic over foreign affairs.Unlike the Rankean tradition,associated originally with monarchic foreign policies and later with totalitarian ones,this tradition stresses the pa- cific nature of policy,its formulation by representative legislative groups,and the control of external cvents by open rather than closed- door diplomacy.In this sense,democracies were thought to suffer severe disabilities in the conduct of foreign affairs. In either case,there is an assumption that there exists an ontological divorce betwecn forcign and domestic affairs that carries with it in political analysis normative tendencies to stress one of the two while ignoring the other.Foreign policy has been thought to differ from domestic policy in its ends(the national interest as opposed to particular intcrcsts),its means (any mcans that can be invoked to achieve the ends,as opposed to domestically"legitimate"means),and its target of operation (a decentralized,anarchic milieu over which the state in question maintains little control,as opposed to a centralized domestic order in which the state has a monopoly of the instruments of social order).Whether the substance of the distinction stresses domestic or foreign affairs,the scparation of the two has a strong empirical founda- tion.Levels of interdependence among all nonmodernized socicties were generally so low that governments could take independent ac- tions cither domestically or abroad with fairly little likelihood that much spillover between them would take place.The instruments used to implement either domestic or foreign policics had effects on either that were in normal times negligible.The "externalities"generated by either domestic or foreign policies did not significantly alter policies in the other field. This is not to say that domestic factors did not affect foreign policy at all,nor that the general international setting did not affect the substance of policies.What it does suggest is that the normative distinc- tion between foreign and domestic activities was quite well matched by actual conditions.The degrees to which they did not coincide led to debates about ways to improve the efficacy of foreign or domestic policies,or about their goals.But the degrce of divergence was not so grcat as to call the distinction into question. Regardless of how the distinction is made,it breaks down once 6 Leopold von Ranke,"A Dialogue on Politics,"reprinted in Theodore H.Von Laue,Lcopold Ranke:The Formative Years (Princeton 1950),168
376 WORLD POLITICS societies become fairly modernized.This does not mean,as Friedrich has argued,that "foreign and domestic policy in developed Western systems constitutes today a seamless web."Distinctions along the analytic lines I have suggested above still obtain,and governments still formulate policies with a predominant extcrnal or internal orientation. But foreign and other policies formulated under modern conditions affect each other in ways that are not salient in nonmodernized or pre- modernized socicties and that derive from both the domestic and inter- national interdependencies associated with modernization.They also derive from the increased scope of governmental activities under mod- ern conditions.Before the Western socictics became highly modernized, for cxample,the major part of government expenditures was devoted to foreign affairs,which was the central concern of government.As the role of the government in the economy and in domestic social life increascs,conccrn for foreign affairs must decrease relative to concern for domestic affairs.In addition,as a result of growing international interdependencics,the external and internal consequences of domestic and foreign policies become more significant,and consequences that are not intended and that may or may not be recognized tend also to increase.Therefore,undesirable policy-conscquenccs also increase. This is true,for examplc,in terms of allocations of resources,regard- less of the multiplicr effect. One example of the growing interdependencc of foreign and do- mestic affairs in all modcrnized societies is related to the emphasis on a favorable balance of payments position.A requisite of favorable trade and services balance may be the restraint of domestic economic growth and the maintenance of economic stability at home in order to prevent domestic prices (and wages)from rising.At the same time, domestic growth is required to meet demands for raised living stand- ards.But,in order to foster growth and meet demands for increased wages,a favorable balance of trade may have to be sacrificed. The linkages between domestic and foreign policies constitute the basic characteristic of the breakdown in the distinction between foreign and domestic affairs in the modernized,interdependent international system.This statement does not imply that foreign and domestic poli- cies are indistinguishable;for with regard to articulated goals and problems of implementation,they remain separate.Rather,it is sug- gestive of the ways in which foreign policies are transformed by the Carl J.Friedrich,"Intranational Politics and Foreign Policy in Developed (Western) Societies,"in R.Barry Farrell,ed.,Approaches to Comparative and International Poli- ticr(Evanston Ig的6)，g7. See Russett and others,World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators,308-309
TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICIES 377 processes of modernization and the development of high levels of in- terdependence.These processes have put an end to the normative dis- tinctions asserting the primacy of the one or the other.They also overshadow the empirical distinction according to which foreign poli- cies vary in type with the political institutions in which they are formulated. THE DYNAMICS OF FOREIGN POLICIES IN MODERNIZED SOCIETIES Foreign policies,like other sorts of policics,can be analyzed in terms of their substance,or content,the processes by which they are formu- lated,and their outcomes.Each of these three dimensions is trans- formed under the impact of modernization. First,in terms of content,the ideal pattern of foreign policies,with its emphasis on the "high policy"functions of security and defense, or,alternatively,on expansion of some attribute of the state,has been widened into if not replaced by a new pattern.Either there is a broad- ening of the spectrum of policy goals to include goals of wealth and welfare in addition to those of power and position associated with high policies,or these older ideal patterns are completely overshadowed by the advent of"low policies."What is distinctive and new about these policics is that they are primarily non-confictual.Like the relations of which they are a part,some are merely fleeting and casual.Others are explicitly cooperative and pertain to the production of international collective goods,which require compatible efforts on the part of official and nonofficial groups in diverse societies.In the case of highly modernized societics,their chief trait is that they are seen as economic goods.They arise from growth in international trade and the con- comitant necessity to regulate trade imbalances,to produce additional liquidity,to finance trade,and to create all the other regulative devices Stanley Hoffmann offers another argument on "low policies"and "high policies" in his essay "Obstinate or Obsolete?The Fate of the Nation-State and the Case of Western Europe,"Daedalus,xcy (Summer 1g66),862-915.Hoffmann feels that nuclear stalemate has served to reinforce the attributes of the nation-state by stabilizing the structure of postwar international society,and chat low policies do not generate the spillover expected of them by prophets of international integration.Although Hoff- mann is quite right in saying that the integrationists overescimated the potential of eco- nomic exigencies for creating international integration,his denial of any effect of low policies is overstated. 10 In definitions of public goods,the emphasis is usually placed on one society rather than on a group of societies.The focus is then on nonexclusivity or the incapacity of a single organization or government to prevent any individual members from re- ceiving its benefits.See Mancur Olson,Jr.,The Logic of Collective Action:Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge,Mass.1g65).It is also truc,however, that incentives exist for cooperation within a group,based on the lure of greater benefits
378 WORLD POLITICS that go along with trade practices.They also pertain to the transforma- tion of alliance structures in a nuclear world. Although many of these goods are measurable in economic terms, they are not to be considered in the domain of international economics. On the contrary,one of the central features of politics among modern- ized socictics is that the politics of wealth and welfare have over- shadowed the politics of power and position,which in the relations among modernized societies are played out in economic terms.Trade rounds in GATT and reform measures in the IMF are the cssence of international politics today.The purely political and purely economic cannot be seen as empirically separable. Moreover,since the salient feature of this relation is an economic one,it has the additional charactcristic that it is eminently commensura- ble,thus fostering theorizing about international political relations. One of the traditional difficulties associated with theorizing about international politics was that traditional national foreign objectives tended to be incommensurable.These goals were,in general,trans- cendental,by which I mean that they were never completely identified with empirical states of affairs.Such goals as“security,”“grandeur,” or"power"are characteristic transcendental national goals.In the case of highly modernized socicties,there arises an additional spectrum of goals that are empirical or at least almost completely transferable to empirical ones.These goals generally refer to qualities associated with wealth and welfare. Second,with respect to the processes by which foreign policies are formulated,it is modernization rather than democratization that has transformed foreign policy decision-making from cabinet-style,closed decision-making,to open politics,both domestically and in interna- tional negotiations.The locus of foreign policy decision-making,with rare exception,has remained fundamentally administrative,with the legislature in a democracy becoming a place where foreign policy debates,as opposed to decisions,occur. Third,and last,the problem of implementing and controlling for- eign policies is also transformed under modernization.In one sense, as indicated by the definition I have proposed concerning foreign policies,the problem of controlling events external to a state is the pre-eminent problem for foreign policy wherever there exist political units without any overarching political authority structures.There was 1 For a discussion of the transfer of action referents from transcendental to cm- pirical ones,see Marion J.Levy,Jr.,"Rapid Social Change and Some Implications for Modernization,"International Conference on the Problems of Modernization in Asia, June 28-July 7,1965 (Seoul 1g65),657-58
TRANSFORMATION OF FOREIGN POLICIES 379 a time when great powers were separated from other powers by the degree to which their governments could control events external to them as well as by the domestic effects of their external activities.Today that distinction is made either on the basis of destructive power alone, or with regard to nonmilitary areas.Because of the added complexity of the problems of control under modernized conditions,or at least in contemporary international society,no state can now be said to be a great power in the old sense of the term. In addition,however,what is special about foreign policies as they are conducted in modern states today is the scalc of the problem of control.The loss of control both domestically and in terms of foreign affairs,at a time when interdependencies among modernized societies are rising,will prove to be the central problem of international politics in the coming years.This central problem has several implications,not the least important of which is the future of the nation-state and the kinds of functional equivalents that can be deviscd to substitute for the state in those areas where the state can no longer be effective. A.The Transformation of Policy Objectives.Preoccupation with high policics and traditional foreign policy objectives and instrumen- talitics has drawn the attention of scholars away from the changes in policy goals that have accompanied modernization,and specifically from the increased salience of low policies and the merging of goals of power and goals of plenty. Most general discussions of foreign policy objectives focus on the goals of high policies,which in the past were generally conceived as ultimate ends and were transcendental.The classical goals of statecraft that Wolfers has defined as goals of"self-extension"or goals of"self-pres- ervation"were such transcendental goals,2 as were the goals known as “imperialism,”“curity,”“prestigc,,”and the ideal or postulated "position"or"role"of a state in the international system.For example, some transcendental goal of security may be identified with stature in the international system,or with a certain sct of role-premises such as 'mediator'"or“balancer.” I suggested with regard to transcendental goals that the classical goals of power and security have been expanded to,or superseded by, goals of wealth and welfare.This change has been accompanied by a change in the empirical referents used to identify transcendental goals. Transcendental goals always have some empirical referent,but they are 12 Arnold Wolfers.Discord and Collaboration:Essavs on International Politics (Balti- more 1g62),91-102.Wolfers adds a third category "self-abnegation,"which fits a logical but not an empirical gap
