Page 93 - Global Political Economy_Understanding The International Economic Order

CHA PTER F OUR
totally unconcerned about the distributive consequences of economic
activities for their relative wealth and power, they frequently do,
largely for security reasons, ignore this concern in their dealings with
others. During the height of the Cold War, for example, the United
States fostered the economic unification of Western Europe for politi-
cal reasons despite the costs to its own economic interests. Kenneth
Waltz has noted that the conscious decision of the United States in
the late 1940s to build the power of its European allies at a sacrifice
to itself was a historically unprecedented action. 7
States are particularly interested in the distribution of those gains
affecting domestic welfare, national wealth, and military power.
When a state weighs absolute versus relative gains, military power is
by far the most important consideration; states are extraordinarily
reluctant, for example, to trade military security for economic gains.
Modern nation-states (like eighteenth-century mercantilists)are ex-
tremely concerned about the consequences of international economic
activities for the distribution of economic gains. Over time, the un-
equal distribution of these gains will inevitably change the interna-
tional balance of economic and military power, and will thus affect
national security. For this reason, states have always been very sensi-
tive to the effects of the international economy on relative rates of
economic growth. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, con-
cern is focused on the distribution of industrial power, especially in
those high-tech industries vitally important to the relative power posi-
tion of individual states. The territorial distribution of industry and
of technological capabilities is a matter of great concern for every
state and a major issue in international political economy.

National Autonomy
One of the dominant themes in the study of international political
economy (IPE)is the persistent clash between the increasing interde-
pendence of the international economy and the desire of individual
states to maintain their economic independence and political auton-
omy. At the same time that states want the benefits of free trade,
foreign investment, and the like, they also desire to protect their polit-
ical autonomy, cultural values, and social structures. However, the
logic of the market system is to expand geographically and to incor-
porate more and more aspects of a society within the price mecha-
nism, thus making domestic matters subject to forces external to the
7
Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
1979).
80