International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   The emergence to independence of a wave of new states in the 1960s and 1970s changed both the structure of the international system and the substance of international relations. As these states took their place alongside the older powers in the United Nations, they brought fresh or renewed global attention to the problems of decolonization, neocolonialism, state legitimacy, development, nonalignment, equality and social justice, and nonintervention. These provided the context for global south foreign policy making and behavior, adding a north–south dimension to the prevailing East–West conflict, especially because Latin American states which had gained their independence in the nineteenth century eventually joined with Afro-Asian states in seeking global reform. Not surprisingly, the independence of Afro-Asian states also had a major effect on political science scholarship, adding new dimensions to the study of comparative politics in particular. Rather surprisingly, however, international relations scholarship remained anchored in great power conceptualizations embodied in predominantly realist and liberal theories. Although Marxist, neo-Marxist, and “globalist” theories were important to third world scholarship, they never gained ground in mainstream international relations. In the subfield of foreign policy, the emergence of a more diverse world did ... log in or subscribe to read full text