The Measurement of Cultural Potentials for Transnationalism

Abstract

Of the two major models for maintaining peace in the international system, the integrative (or associative, in Galtung's terms) and the balance-of-power (or dissociative in Galtung's terms), the integrative model has been winning out in recent years in terms of research emphasis. The use of the integrative model involves a study both of the 'tentative process' of forming links between territorial units, and of the identification of existing linkage systems and of the circumstances under which they contribute to international problem-solving and peace. The earlier studies of message and transaction flows2 soon merged with the study of the networks, the institutionalized channels which carry the messages.3 What determines the level of investment a country will make in these international linkage systems as against its national defense system? That both are considered investments in national security can be seen from the fact that the foreign affairs office of every national government has a division of cultural affairs, and if they can afford it a staff of cultural attaches. Although not addressing the question in these terms, Galtung4 suggests that there is a critical interaction between size and level of development in determining the level of investment a country will make in extranational contacts. Small highly developed countries which are strait-jacketed into molds that cannot hold all their interests, and large less developed countries which urgently feel the need to develop contacts to help them carry the interests they are increasingly aware of, will be the most active investors in transnational contacts. Large developed nations will be too self-sufficient to care very much about transnationalism, and small less developed societies have neither the energy nor the resources to get involved. The purpose of this paper is to establish a typology of nations based on different overall patterns of allocation of national resources to the development of cultural potential for integrative activity, and to the development of the military potential for hostilities. If size and level of development are adequate explanatory variables, then all countries at a given size and developmental level will make similar investments in transnationalism as against defense systems. If not, there are other, either structurally or culturally determined factors that influence the investment pattern. In order to investigate patterns of transnational involvement, it is necessary to develop an index of the capability of a nation to participate actively in an integrative world culture. The transnational cultural potential is offered as such an index. This index draws on Deutsch's concept, developed in another context, of 'the crude modeling of the process of learning the habits of community perceptions, community identification, community compliance and community support.'5 The development of these perceptions depends on the national and international knowledge stock available to citizens of a country. Not only the perceptions, but their cognitive complexity with respect to the images held of other nations, are important.0 Over-simplified images of other nations, no matter how favorable they are, and how strongly shared communally, are not a viable basis for international integration. Images are not simply cognitive constructs, however. They also have an action component.7 This action component can be