Such regimes may also seek to cut a regional figure, attempt to unify hitherto scattered neighbors under their own tutelage, undertake verbal attacks or more serious actions against their neighbors. Such a policy may cope with real problems. It will also promote the domestic position of the leader who achieves regional prominence. The intensity of excitement can only be sustained if substantial numbers of individuals are drawn into agitation, an activity providing many immediate psychic rewards to the people actively mobilized for this purpose. Keeping the pitch of excitement is difficult. Economic problems tend to mount and lead to growing frustrations. The more sophisticated are unlikely to be caught up in the popular excitement and increasingly consider this strategy ill-advised and become progressively less enthusiastic. The excitement may lead to unpredictability, a growing sense of insecurity and whim. It may open the way to the organizational activities of extremists. It may call for progressive intimidation. Type IV--Intimidating Critical Sectors: A fourth possibility is a strategy which emphasizes intimidation. Particularly where political traditions are ill-formed, and there has been no recent history of political freedom, individuals of all social strata are easily intimidated. Under such circumstances it would take but a few examples to induce silence and sufficient obedience from civil servants and army. Political opposition, the press, political organizations of all kinds could be silenced or induced to toe the government's line. A systematic effort to identify possible opponents and to induce them, each with his inevitable weakness or family, friends or perquisites he values, to either be silent or to go abroad. Obscure ambassadorial posts are increasingly available for this purpose. Ultimately, at the extreme, there is always the mortal automobile accident or the mysterious disappearance. A single political party may be the major armature for the regime to inform itself, to intimidate and to infuse in the bureaucracy, business, the religious bodies, and universities the appropriate attitudes and performance. But a party is not necessary for this purpose, so long as the army and the civil service can be counted upon, and the government possesses sufficient control over intellectual and economic resources and activity. There is no need here to spoll out the steps a regime could take if it is to consolidate its position through the strategy of intimidation. The major problem here is how to sustain the other functions of government, including economic performance, a minimum degree of reliability and order, and a sufficient level of collaboration among individuals to permit the system to function while maintaining mutual suspicion and intimidation at a high level. A second, and perhaps increasingly serious by-product of an intimidatory regime is the advantage this gives to oppositionists trained in clandestine organization. Beneath the surface of intimidation, it is only the secretive, conspiratorial parties which know how to organize. At present, the Communists are the professionals at this game, leaving the moderates, the liberals, those who prefer an open and free society like our own, helpless victims of the government's repressive measures. The inheritors of such a strategy, therefore, are likely to be the Communists or, in parts of Africa, at least, color or racist fanatics. No regime will survive on any single strategy. Successful governance requires a mixture of these four strategies most appropriate to each situation. No prescription can be given a priori. The critical point for value judgment is the relative weight of these four components in any regime's approach to functioning and surviving. (2) Who are one's allies? The possible combinations of allies is legion. But it might be useful to distinguish five different typical alliance patterns. Civil Service and Army: There are examples of leaders who have come to depend heavily upon the civil service for a major source of support, and on the army. The low-key problem-solvers are likely to find these as their main allies, although they tend to try to enlist the energies and support of dynamic elements in the society outside the bureaucracy, such as business groups or intellectuals. To depend upon the bureaucracy alone is to run the risk of undue caution, a going by precedent, a reenforcement of past privileges, rather than an opening of the system to orderly and constructive change. Moreover, most bureaucracies in developing countries have not been manned by men drawn from all tribes, communities or ethnic groups, but rather in almost every case, from selected communities who showed an aptitude for government service or loyalty to the colonial power. Others who were not drawn into the highly privileged service tend to suspect that the bureaucracy is being used to promote the interests of the favored community and that they are denied opportunities. Typically, therefore, bureaucratic recruitment must undergo substantial changes, a factor complicating a regime's relationship with the professionals in both the civil service and the army. Moreover, if any group of leaders comes to depend too exclusively on the bureaucracy--and does not broaden its political base--the chances are good that the military element will sooner or later come to preponderate. Urban Semi-educated: Some regimes have found their power base eroding, for numerous reasons, or they have sought to shift the source of their support from the more well-established elements in the society to those likely to be more responsive to the regime's requirements. likely group is the increasingly numerous urban population with enough education to lift them from the peasantry or urban proletariat, but not sufficient training to qualify them for more rewarding jobs in the newer sectors of the economy. They have gone far enough from their own communities to be deracines, but they have not yet developed a self-image and integrity of their own. They are the ones most likely to be easily mobilized for certain lower-level political chores--the crowds-on-call, the agitators, the political organizers, even the medium-tough bully boys who may be needed for specific cases of intimidation. An inclusive political party will provide these with many opportunities for absorbing activity. Because of their numbers, the time they have to spare and the ability of an artful regime to mobilize their loyalty, they can be a substantial substitute source of political support instead of the more orderly and established people the regime may have depended upon when it first came to power. These men are not likely to understand the niceties of bureaucratic functioning nor the prerequisites of effective economic activity. They are good at pushing faster distribution, they are likely to disrupt orderly economic growth. Predictability in the public domain and the public peace, generally, are likely to suffer. Rural Middle and Lower Class: Several regimes have sought to enlist as principal allies the rural population. This is not illogical, since the bulk of the people in most emerging countries still live in the countryside. In Betancourt's Venezuela, rural support was sought through new types of rural organizations designed not only to promote certain rural reforms but also as an armature for the organization of political support for the Accion Democratica, Betancourt's party. Alternatively, regimes such as Mr. Bandaranaike's in Ceylon and Mr. Menderes' in Turkey, depending upon the rural vote can activate the countryside along traditional lines, using as lieutenants prominent individuals whose power position stemmed from their inherited status or traditional role in the country. On the Depending thus on the countryside has certain advantages. one hand he who is able to organize there is likely to gain political position at the expense of the urban-based political leaders who often come forward first, thus displacing the civil servants, the cosmopolitan intellectuals, the professionals who often inherited power at independence. At a certain stage in nationalist self-consciousness, it is possible to appeal "to the people" in the name of indigenous national values and against these unduly westernized, alienated leaders. Secondly, the leadership which does thus base itself on the countryside for its political growth and survival, must seek ways of bridging the intractable gap between the urban and rural leadership. A new synthesis is therefore forced upon them by their political imperatives. Moreover, basing oneself in the countryside may have the by-product effect of directing more developmental attention to the needs of the countryside than is typical in most regimes which are based largely on city strength. There are, however, disadvantages to this approach, too. By its nature the countryside vote is likely to make itself heard only at election time, while the regime must rule through its civil servants and its other organizations, which are largely manned by men of the city and who are well able to sabotage the regime's policies by foot-dragging and near inaction unless bureaucratic discipline is unusually strong. Secondly, all too often efforts to win the rural vote lead to extensive rural subsidies designed not so much to expand agricultural production, which is an economic necessity, as to meet the countryside's consumption needs in order to acquire a political bonus for leaders who promote these distributive schemes. Finally, reaching toward the rural population through appeals to traditional values may serve to enthrone the religious and cultural traditionalists. Religious and Cultural Traditionalists: While it is unlikely that any regime can base itself mainly on the cultural or religious conservatives, concern for the rural population is most likely to bring these figures to the fore. These religious and cultural conservatives, however, need not be in the countryside, strictly speaking. Indeed, it may be in the city that they feel their values most acutely threatened and where their activities may be most intense. It is likely, however, that they will find their most willing followers in the countryside, and they may well be the most important intermediaries to the rural masses. To be on their side is to be on the side of the great tradition, the sacred or glorious past which must be evoked if self respect and national integrity are to be achieved. They represent one's uniqueness and serve to differentiate the self from the modernizing world intruding from abroad. However, in efforts to cater to the traditionalists, or what they appear to represent for the rural population, the regime may increasingly commit itself to traditional ways of dealing with economic and administrative problems which are likely to slow down development, make problem solving more difficult and perhaps undermine whatever effectiveness there was within the bureaucracy. At the same time, it is often difficult to enliven a sense of the past without reawakening ancient antagonisms within the society, divisions which appeared to be waning under the more cosmopolitan independence leaders, who were relatively free from these parochial attachments. No doubt other possibilities will come to mind. One final type, I will note in closing, would depend upon mass organizations, such as trade unions, farmers' unions and other syndicalist-type institutions which may be in the making. Thus far, I know of no examples where a regime has been able to develop sufficient support from such a base to sustain itself. Nevertheless, we see in Egypt, Ghana and several other countries a conscious effort by government to promote such organizations as means for overcoming or by-passing the possible resistance to change of more traditional organization. And I suspect that, given the relatively low level of other types of political organization in parts of Africa, a rather modest development of such organizations might provide a popular base sufficient for survival over a considerable period of time, if too many demands are not made upon the polity by the regime. You have followed me with patience. I frankly do not feel I have taken you very far, although I have talked to you long enough. I mentioned at the beginning what I would reiterate.here. Leaders in underdeveloped countries are generally insecure in their power. They are seeking ways to ensure their will and their survival over a tolerably protracted period. The strategies they adopt and the resulting political consequences within their countries have a good deal to do with the type of men who gain control in these countries and the values and policies they pursue. These, in turn, affect the diplomatic environment in which other free world statesmen must act. As students of international relations, therefore, these matters should concern you. Thank you. REALITY-TESTING AND VALUE ORIENTATION IN INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS by Kenneth E. Boulding, Professor of Economics, I I call this talk "Reality-Testing and Value Orientation in International Systems," which enables me to talk about practically anything. am not going to attempt to define the international system. I think this is a useless enterprise. The most fundamental concept is what I call the "sociosphere;" it is the sphere of all social relations. It consists of all peoples in the world, all organizations, and all relations between them. The international system is an ill-defined sub-set of the sociosphere, and I don't really care how ill-defined it is, as I am not going to waste any time in deciding where the international system begins and where whatever else it is ends. But it is clear that there are parts of the sociosphere, which are very clearly part of the international system: the nations, the international organizations, perhaps the international corporations, other entities like families (royal families used to be very much part of it) and it will be hard to find any human institution which does not have some relations with the international system. The principal problem that I am wrestling with today is the question of reality-testing of our images of the international system. We all have some kind of image of what the international system is like. We have some image just of its geography, of space and time. Sometimes this image is a little weird. I was once leading a course during the war on economic problems and about halfway through the course it damed on me that half the students in the class didn't know where anything was in the world, and this is something of a handicap. So I came in one day, gave them each a piece of paper and asked them to draw a map of the world and to name about 100 places on it. I kept these for years; they were most entertaining. I particularly remember the "Philistine" Islands, in the Caspian Sea, just off the coast of Alaska. As a matter of fact, I suspect that this ignorance of the sheer geographical image of the world extends very far. We have images of the nature of political systems, we have images of nations. We have stereotypes of what nations are like. Thirty percent of the people in this country do not know that China is Communist, according to a recent survey done by our Survey Research Organization, and certainly the images which people have of the world can be extraordinarily far from anything like reality. These images are tremendously important in the international system, because the images of the international system are part of the international system itself. This means three billion images, and this is quite a lot. Some of these one can neglect. On the other hand, many of them one cannot neglect, because the images of the decision makers of the international system are, of course, of enormous importance in determining the nature of their decisions. It is my theory of decisions that essentially the decision is determined by the image and not by the stimulus, and that it is determined especially by the value functions which overlie the images, that is, what we think of as good or bad. |