A Statist Interpretation of American Oil Policy toward the Middle East

Abstract

There has long been a disjuncture between the paradigms used to analyze domestic and international politics. For domestic politics, interest group (or liberal) and, to a lesser extent, Marxist theories have predominated, at least in the United States. For international relations, state-centric, unified actor models have, until very recently, provided the basic orientation. So long as international relations and foreign policy centered on strategic and military considerations this analytic fissure could be glossed over. Since all groups within a society could be presumed to support the defense of territorial and political integrity, each perspective could treat the state as a unified actor: a Marxist perspective (in which only economic groups count); a liberal one (in which all groups count); and a state-centric one. For core objectives the potential divergence between domestic and international modes of analysis could remain latent. However, as economic issues have become more prominent, the analytic strain has increased. Unlike strategic policy, most foreign economic issues have a differentiated impact on societal groups. It is not plausible to assume that groups will naturally accept the preferences of central decision makers. The assumption that the state can be treated as a unified actor, the personification of a single individual, appears increasingly hollow, a shell without an egg. One response to the intellectual problem posed by the disjuncture between international and domestic modes of analysis has been to extend Marxist and liberal approaches into the area of foreign policy. The Marxist perspective has built upon the foundation that has as its cornerstone the discussions of imperialism by Hobson, Hilferding, and Lenin. Advocates of the Marxist inter-