International Balance Of Power Research Articles

Minimizing Staff Resistance to Federally Mandated Policies

Schools' internal balance of power has shifted. Therefore, policy making should be modified. P. L. 94-142 is a case in point.

Oil Companies and Governments: International Reaction to the Nationalization of the Petroleum Industry in Spain: 1927-1930

In his recent book Oil Companies in the International System, Louis Turner takes a critical 'look at the myths that have built up around the relationship between national governments and oil companies'.' Working with only a 'patchy' historical record, Turner concludes that multinational petroleum companies have not been able to influence the policies of either their host or parent governments to any significant degree. Parent governments in particular have not let the demands of the companies determine their policies, and although there have been periods when these governments did pay considerable attention to the petroleum industry, this has been the result of shifts in the international power balance and not of the political weight of the multinationals.2 Turner's book represents a revision of the work of previous students of the oil industry, such as John M. Blair and Robert Engler,3 who have portrayed the oil companies as powerful institutions fully capable of getting their way with anyone. Turner directs his book against the hagiographers of the industry as well as against its demonologists, but it is against the latter that the book is primarily aimed. As he stated elsewhere, 'what the radicals do not provide is the broad historical analysis which allows us to sort out the mythology surrounding corporate power from the reality'.4 This study of the reaction of the multinational oil companies to the nationalization of the petroleum industry in Spain, which was undertaken in full expectation of verifying 'the myth surrounding

Laos: The Forgotten War Widens

In 1969, the most significant change in Laos was the widening of the forgotten war, notre guerre oubliee, as Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma calls it. Both the Royal Lao Government (RIG) and the Pathet Lao (PL) expanded their military operations, each attempting to influence the internal power balance as well as the external forces, so important to the future of the country. The prevailing ground rules, established when government and Communist forces resumed fighting in 1963, were that the Communist forcesNorth Vietnamese and Pathet Lao-take the initiative during the dry season (generally October to May), followed by ripostes during the wet season by RLG forces, with U.S. air support. The war in Laos was not on the scale of the larger, grinding war in South Vietnam, but rather consisted largely of small unit attacks on isolated positions, struggles for certain tactical mountain-top and road control positions in sparsely populated highland areas, ambushes, and hit and run encounters in some valley sites. The RLG retained control over the Mekong Valley regions, where the bulk of the lowland Lao live, and they held certain adjacent mountain areas and a few scattered sites within enemy territory which they could reach only by aircraft. The Communist forces controlled the northern and eastern segments of the country, including all territory which borders on Communist China and North Vietnam, covering regions inhabited largely by highland minorities. The widened war in 1969 made it clear that these ground rules of engagement had been significantly altered.