International Politics, Domestic Politics and the Marshall Plan

Abstract

The analytical framework underpinning this study is the view that international and domestic politics are intertwined, impact upon each other, and, in some cases, draw strength from each other. As Gourevitch puts it, ‘International relations and domestic politics are … so interrelated that they should be analyzed simultaneously, as wholes.’1 Thus, events such as the Marshall Plan can be most profitably understood with reference to both domestic and international relations and politics. The Marshall Plan is often presented in terms of establishing US hegemony at the international level and determining the internal politics of the recipient states at the domestic level. However, the relationship between domestic and international politics and the Marshall Plan is more complex than this, for the recipient governments mediated the impact of the Marshall Plan and in turn had some influence over the nature of US hegemony. One of the main theoretical currents flowing through this book is that there are limits to external influence because of the impact of domestic institutions and the resources available to domestic political actors. Recipients of American aid were not passive, but active political agents in their own right, and were able to draw on the strength of the US to consolidate their own position.