Blackwell Reference Online

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Comment on this article   There has been a recent and influential movement in international studies to move beyond merely seeing events of interest, be they wars, arms transfers, currency crises, or trade flows, as discrete independent events. Previously, it was assumed that international affairs could be systematically understood by breaking down history and comparing the autonomous parts to each other. However, to the extent that there are meaningful and regular interactions between events, or nonevents, of interest, assumptions of independent international decisions would miss these linkages. This is doubly problematic because there are a number of theoretically plausible processes in international affairs – such as rational expectations, learning, bureaucratic inertia, migration, and competition – that are likely to lead international actors to condition their decisions on either previous or simultaneously unfolding events around the globe. Furthermore, these dependence-inducing mechanisms are embedded within influential frameworks as diverse as the Kantian research program, reciprocity research, the bureaucratic model of politics, complex interdependence, conflict diffusion, power cycle theory, power transition theory, the leadership long-cycle, and rivalry research, and this is only a sampling of the international relations research frameworks that suggest some level of ... log in or subscribe to read full text