Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:18:12.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The issue cycle: conceptualizing long-term global political change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

John A. Vasquez  and
Richard W. Mansbach
John A. Vasquez
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick.
Richard W. Mansbach
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Science at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick.
Get access

Abstract

A conceptual framework for the analysis of global political change is presented and illustrated with examples drawn from the Cold War. The most important issues on an agenda, the critical issues, go through identifiable stages: genesis, crisis, ritualization, dormancy, decision making, and authoritative allocation. The effects of the different stages on behavior of international actors is examined in a preliminary fashion, and a theoretical rationale is offered. Each stage, treated in detail, relates to the others in terms of differences in behavior associated with each stage, the evolving of relationships among actors, and the resolution of issues. The concluding section elaborates the research implications.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Spring 1983 , pp. 257 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Ole Holsti, R., Siverson, Randolph M., and George, Alexander L., eds., Change in the International System (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1980)Google Scholar; Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, chaps. 1, 3, and 5; Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Relations (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), chaps. 5 and 6Google Scholar; Krasner, Stephen D., “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” International Organization 36, 2 (Spring 1982), pp. 190–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keohane, Robert O., “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967–1977,” in Holsti, , Siverson, , and George, , Change in the International System, p. 136Google Scholar. For a highly sophisticated reformulation of this position see Rummel, R. J., War, Power, Peace, vol. 4: Understanding Conflict and War (Beverly Hills, Cal.: Sage, 1979), pp. 266–70Google Scholar.

3. For the case against the realist paradigm see Vasquez, John A., The Power of Power Politics: A Critique (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

4. For empirical support on this question see Rummel, , War, Power, Peace, 4:227–29Google Scholar. For a conceptual analysis see Mansbach, Richard W. and Vasquez, John A., In Search of Theory: A New Paradigm for Global Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 234–40Google Scholar.

5. See Downs, Anthony, “Up and Down with Ecology–the ‘Issue Attention Cycle,’” Public Interest 28 (1972), pp. 38–50Google Scholar.

6. Cobb, Roger W. and Elder, Charles D., Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda Building (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1972), p. 14Google Scholar. See also Cobb, Roger W. et al. , “Agenda Building as a Comparative Political Process,” American Political Science Review 70 (1976), pp. 126–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Easton, David, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 50Google Scholar.

8. Mansbach, and Vasquez, , In Search of Theory, pp. 54–59Google Scholar.

9. Keohane, Robert and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), p. 32Google Scholar.

10. See Key, V. O., “A Theory of Critical Elections,” Journal of Politics 17 (1955), pp. 2–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sundquist, James, Dynamics of the Party System (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1973)Google Scholar.

11. The presence of the last two characteristics of genesis—a change in the goals of contention and high uncertainty—is fairly obvious. The occupation of the Axis states obviated the need for contention over the fascism issue. The question of communism for American leaders and capitalism for Stalin increasingly dominated foreign policy by 1947. For the United States this led to such ironies as rearming Germany and building up Japan so that they would be bulwarks against communism. The sense of uncertainty during the transition is likewise fairly clear from a perusal of primary sources. Quantitative measures of “uncertainty,” however, should provide an interesting analysis.

12. See, for example, Deibel, T. L., “A Guide to International Divorce1,” Foreign Policy no. 30 (1978), pp. 17–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. See Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), chap. 6Google Scholar.

14. See McClelland, Charles A., “Access to Berlin: The Quantity and Variety of Events, 1948–1963,” in Singer, J. David, ed., Quantitative International Politics (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 159–87Google Scholar.

15. See Sundquist, , Dynamics of the Parly System, p. 30Google Scholar.

16. Hermann, Charles F., “International Crisis as a Situational Variable,” in Rosenau, J. N., ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy (New York: Free Press, 1969), p. 4141Google Scholar, and Snyder, Glenn H. and Diesing, Paul, Conflict Among Nations: Decision Making and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

17. In this sense ritualization involves an inchoate regime. Compare Krasner, , “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences,” p. 186Google Scholar, with Young, Oran R., “Regime Dynamics: The Rise and Fall of International Regimes,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 277–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar and with Donald J. Puchala and Raymond F. Hopkins, “International Regimes: Lessons from Inductive Analysis,” ibid., p. 247. Ritualization, however, is not a “full” regime in Krasner's sense, because it lacks accepted decision-making procedures.

18. For further analysis on domestic constraints see the interesting essay by George, Alexander L., “Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy Legitimacy,” in Holsti, , Siverson, , and George, , Change in the International System, pp. 233–62Google Scholar.

19. This shift can be traced by an examination of the different outcomes of the Yalta, Potsdam, and San Francisco conferences and the later discussions on Germany.

20. A policy-relevant avenue of future inquiry would be an attempt to see if certain characteristics of the ritualization stage could be found to distinguish a sequence of crises that end in peaceful resolution via dormancy from those that produce a crisis that escalates to war. This could be done by examining the extent to which lessons learned from crises and rituals thus institutionalized tend to make future crises less likely to escalate. Since arms races are highly correlated with the escalation of crises, one factor involved would be the extent to which rituals encouraged arms races. On the role of arms races see Wallace, Michael D., “Arms Races and Escalation: Some New Evidence,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 23 (1979), pp. 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. For one of the first recommendations of this strategy see Osgood, Charles E., “Suggestions for Winning the Real War with Communism,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 3 (1959), pp. 295–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an empirical analysis of reciprocity see Jervis, Robert, “Security Regimes,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 366–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. For an explanation of how cognitive maps change see Vasquez, John A., “A Learning Theory of the American Anti-Vietnam War Movement,” Journal of Peace Research 13 (1976), pp. 304–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. See Hopmann, P. Terrence and King, Timothy D. “From Cold War to Detente: The Role of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” in Holsti, , Siverson, , and George, , Change in the International System, pp. 163–88Google Scholar.

24. Hermann, , “International Crisis as a Situational Variable,” p. 414Google Scholar; McClelland, , “Access to Berlin,” pp. 159–87Google Scholar; Snyder, and Diesing, , Conflict Among Nations, pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

25. See Posen, Barry R. and Van Evera, Stephen W., “Overarming and Underwhelming,” Foreign Policy no. 40 (1980), pp. 99–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. See Burnham, Walter D., “Party Systems and the Political Process,” in Chambers, William M. and Burnham, , eds., The American Party System: Stages of Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 288Google Scholar.

27. See Denton, Frank, “Some Regularities in International Conflict, 1820–1949,” Background 9 (1966), pp. 283–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. See Gilpin, , War and Change in World Politics, pp. 106–7, 186–210Google Scholar.

29. See Jervis, , Perception and Misperception, and Shapiro, M. and Bonham, G., “Cognitive Process and Foreign Policy Decision-Making,” International Studies Quarterly 17 (1973), pp. 147–74Google Scholar.

30. Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, Mansbach and Vasquez, In Search of Theory, Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes.”

31. See Holsti, Ole and George, Alexander, “The Effects of Stress on the Performance of Foreign Policy-Makers,” Political Science Annual, vol. 6 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), pp. 255–319Google Scholar

32. Another of the major logical problems with realist explanations is that the way they describe changes in power is ambiguous and imprecise. As a consequence there is a strong tendency of these explanations to be nonpredictive (or retrodictive) and post hoc; thereby being nonfalsifiable. These problems are not insurmountable, particularly if precise measures of economic, demographic, and military capability are employed. See Singer, J. David, ed., The Correlates of War: II (New York: Free Press, 1980)Google Scholar, and Organski, A. F. K. and Kugler, Jacek, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

33. See Hermann, Margaret G., “Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior Using the Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders,” International Studies Quarterly 24 (1980), pp. 7–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Young, , “Regime Dynamics,” pp. 282–85Google Scholar; Puchala, and Hopkins, , “International Regimes,” pp. 245–47Google Scholar; Krasner, , “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences,” pp. 186–89Google Scholar; Stein, Arthur A., “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 299–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert O. Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes,” ibid., pp. 325–55.

35. Jervis, , “Security Regimes,” p. 369Google Scholar.

36. Ibid., pp. 368–78.

37. Choucri, Nazli and North, Robert C., Nations in Conflict (San Francisco: Freeman, 1975), pp. 46–64Google Scholar; Ferguson, Wallace K. and Brunn, Geoffrey, A Survey of European Civilization, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), p. 811Google Scholar.