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