Dependency Structures as the Dominant Pattern in World Society

In their work on a series of monographs, the themes of which follow, a group from the Section for International Politics of the German Political Science Association posits the following assump tions : (a) that international relations and the foreign policies of individual states can be suffi ciently explained only when considered within the hierarchical structure of world society; and (b) that this structure, carried by the interests and mechanism of capitalism, represents a system of dominance ('Herrschaft'). 1) Empirical analysis of penetration processes and dependency structures in various strata of world society. This includes the global as well as respective national historical conditions, and also the socio-economic changes in and between the center nations which generated waves of penetra tion.2) Analysis of the core area of the more or less integrated international center, including multi national corporations and bank systems; of the effects of the international division of labor with regard to desintegration and retardation of devel opment in the international and intranational peripheries of world society.3) Analysis of the role of the state apparatuses as agents of the national centers as well as of transnational actors.4) Analysis of the nature of the competition between the capitalist and the socialist systems and its function in stabilizing or destabilizing the international system of dominance.5) Examination of the relations between socialist societies as to the extent to which they represent reactions to the capitalist environment or autonomous transition forms, and as to the con clusion to be drawn for emancipating non- socialist peripheries.6) Estimation of the possibilities for emancipa tory strategies of dissociation in the peripheries aiming at nonviolent capital accumulation, divi sion of labor, and cultural development, all these free of dominance.