International Commitments

T | nHERE is hardly a government existing which does not from time to time invoke its 'international commitments' to justify imposing burdens on its citizens. These commitments range from the simple submission to international law and membership of international organisations to treaty obligations and to the less tangible political understandings with other countries. Probably throughout the history of diplomacy the language of commitment has had currency in international relations. In -our democratic age in which the onus of justifying international policies to domestic constituencies has become greater, and in which the diplomatic world has truly lost its autonomy, the invocation of commitments has a particular urgency and relevance. In the particular circumstances of this century and the last, in which empires of unprecedented promiscuity, and supposedly anti-imperialist interventions of equal magnitude, have characterised international relations, the major powers have readily assumed commitments around the globe and used the language of international obligation with considerable prolixity. In such circumstances one would have supposed that theorists of international relations would devote some thought to the notion of international commitment. But, alas. Despite the considerable interest in alliances and alignments which has developed over the last decade or so, both in political studies and social psychology, very little consideration has been given by social scientists to the notion of commitment. This can be easily seen even from a cursory look at the standard texts in the formal study of conflict and alignment. Rapoport does not even mention the word in N-Person Game Theory' or Strategy and Conscience,2 while he devotes exactly one paragraph to it in Fights, Games and Debates.8 Similarly, to take an example from social psychology, Tedeschi, Schlenker and Bonoma 4 do not treat the concept and process of com

Epistemology · Political science · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Philosophy