Abstract
The second basic hypothesis of the present study advances the notion that increases in international organization-building tend to reduce the incidence of warfare among human collectivities organized as nation-states. We do not, of course, expect that international organization-building per se will bring about a peaceful world. International organization-building is only one element, although a very important one, in any long-range strategic conception of world peace. Its primary contribution lies in its functioning as a constraint on national leadership groups, dissuading them from resorting to violence as a means of international — or internationally diverted national-conflict resolution.
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Notes
According to Bogardus, integration has been defined as (1) ‘the uniting o separate entities into a cohesive whole which is sometimes different from the parts’; (2) ‘the complete assimilation of different cultural elements so as to produce a homogeneous culture of mutually adapted traits’; (3) ‘that social process which tends to harmonize and unify diverse and conflicting units’; (4) ‘the process of interaction between members of a group which results in reciprocal accommodation with an increased sense of identification with the group’; (5) ‘a process of accommodation within … groups whereby a consensus is created which welds the group into unanimity involving both intellectual and emotional responses.’ For North and his associates, integration has been equated with the (1) ‘probability of violence given a conflict situation’; (2) ‘frequency of conflicts between any given number of organizations’; (3) ‘agreement on policy conditions’; (4) ‘degree of interdependence between given organizations’; (5) ‘interlocking communication systems or structure’; (6) ‘overlapping of membership.’
Cf., Haas (1958: 16); Lindberg (1963: 6); Etzioni (1965: 16, 34).
More precisely, it is the degree to which integration is achieved or not achieved which we try to establish; i.e., international integration is conceived as a continuum.
Muzafer Sherif and his associates (Sherif, 1967: 445–454) have shown in their small group research that the introduction, in experimental settings with two groups of subjects, of a vital task which could be performed satisfactorily only through the combined efforts of both groups would invariably lead to friendly and non-violent interactions. Conversely, when the experi-mental setting was structured in such a way that goal achievement was predicated on competition between the two groups, interaction would tend to take on hostile and even openly violent forms.
Our de-emphasis of the coercion theory represents yet another consequence of the model of world politics which was outlined in Chapter 3, Section 3. It serves to underscore our argument about the crucial difference between the nation-state and international organization. The coercion theory of integration is an indispensable intellectual tool (though not the only one) for comprehending the viability of human societies organized as nation-states (Dahrendorf, 1959: 157 ff.). However, comparable reliance on coercion would actually obviate the integrative function of international organization.
Singer and Wallace (1970: 539), in a similar analysis of the integrative function of international organization-building measured by IGO growth, focus on the onset of interstate wars as their dependent variable. Their correlation coefficients, too, are generally lower than those which we obtained in the case of all international wars and higher than those for Great Power wars.
Data on membership in the international system are taken from Singer and Small (1969).
Singer and Wallace (1970: 539) also found a small positive correlation between their measures of international organization-building and the magnitude of interstate war. However, instead of accounting for this positive correlation by considering the impact of a third variable, they suggested that a statistical artifact was involved. They pointed out that unlike the measure of frequency of war, the measure of magnitude of war tends to take on higher values over time. Moreover, the measures of international organization-building also display an increasing trend over time. Thus, they argued, ‘when any two sets of variables show a secular trend in the same direction over time, there is bound to be some positive correlation between (them)’ (ibid.).
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© 1973 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Rittberger, V. (1973). International Organization-Building and Integration within the Global Context. In: Evolution and International Organization. Studien zur Regierungslehre und Internationalen Politik, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9070-1_5
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