'BLAME' AS INTERNATIONAL BEHAVIOR A contribution to inter-state interaction theory*

By

HELGE HVEEM International Peace Research Institute, Oslo

1. Introduction The intention of this paper is to present some ideas on the role of a dimension which has relevance to several fields of International Relations theory: to a the­ory of conflict, to the theory of sanc­tions, or generally to a theory of inter­state interactions. This is the 'blame-praise' dimension.

Two assumptions lie at the basis of the proposal that this dimension is worth­while studying. First, that it may be separated analytically as a specific form of inter-state behavior. Second, that it is related to some fundamental aspects of the international system and its actors.

I postulate that high prestige or 'good reputation' is of some value to all actors in the system, and that consequently they will seek 'praise' to avoid 'blame'. Or, as North et al. have noted, the be­havior of a state

can be viewed as adjustment activities in the effort to achieve an optimal balance of un­avoidable punishment to preferred reward.1

The case for this postulate should be relatively clear. The widespread criticism of the United States' policy and presence in Vietnam is and must be of some con­cern to the US government. The outside blaming which the invasion of Czecho­slovakia inflicted upon the Soviet Union and allied states' leadership must have been considered or at least strongly felt afterwards by the same states. Even if the super powers would probably be less hurt by blame than smaller powers, they

would consider it to be in their 'national interest' to be 'praised' or 'rewarded', and to avoid being 'blamed' or 'punished'.

The case is also found in the informal rule of the international system that bad behavior ought to be criticized, i.e. it is a 'moral obligation' for any actor in the system to act out against those actors who break the formal or informal stan­dards of behavior of the system. Such a view is seen behind the thinking of many leaders of smaller states who see it as their duty to act as the 'bad conscience' of the world. In particular it is seen in the philosophy of the 'actively neutralist' countries.2

'Blame' or 'praise' may also be de­liberately chosen acts where others forms of behavior are not available, or where this particular form of behavior is pre­ferred to other available forms. To some states, particularly the small ones which lack other resources, blaming may be the only form available. In this respect it may not even be related to any partic­ular act or behavioral trend which 'de­serves' blame.

2. Definitions and scope By the term 'blame' I mean an act of criticism, verbal or written, by one ac­tor of another; it is an act of negative evaluation. 'Praise' on the other hand is understood as an act of approval or of expressing positive evaluations. For an act of blame or praise to be relevant to international politics, it has to be com­municated by a representative of the

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50 Helge Hveem

blaming (praising) actor, the sender, and recognized by a representative of the blamed, the receiver, and/or by third parties. A representative is an official governmental or diplomatic person whose status is recognized by formal or informal conventions.

The role or junction of blame and praise is at least potentially manifold. It has potential relevance to four very basic dimensions of international poli­tics: the conflict vs. peace, the violent vs. non-violent, the integrative vs. dis­integrative, and the balancing or equi­librating vs. imbalancing dimensions.

To give some examples: blame is a form of (negative) conflict behavior, while praise (most often?) is peaceful or peace-creating behavior. Further, blame is a form of non-violent conflict behavior. Even further, blame and praise may have both integrative and disinte­grative functions, depending on what level of the system one is studying, and on certain other factors. Lastly, blame and praise may have consequences for the internal equilibrium of an interna­tional system, both in the equilibrating and the disequilibrating direction.

For analytic purposes, one may distin­guish between four systems: the sender; the receiver; the sender-receiver rela­tionship; and the wider, environmental system of sender, receiver and third parties. Since I am particularly con­cerned with relational aspects of state behavior, in state interaction I shall focus on the latter two systems.

Blame and praise may be the result of, result in, or in some way be related to other forms of state behavior or interaction between states. Blaming another state is of course, or should at least be, 'due to something'. In most cases it may be seen as a response to an act performed by another, but as we know this is not always so: there is al­ways the case of the alleged plot, sub­

version etc. and blaming in such cases may be due to other factors or aims on behalf of the sender. Acts of blaming and praising of course will have to be correlated with other forms of interac­tion to look after possible (causal) rela­tions.

I should also stress that I chose to focus on state behavior, i.e. the national state is our unit. One could very well have applied our ideas to interaction between other units, e.g. intrastate units interacting with corresponding units in other states or with the very states them­selves. Thus, in the case of the trade union or the national students' associa­tion of one particular country voicing very strong criticisms against some other country with the result that an official (state) protest (response blaming) from the receiver is directed against the corresponding official level of the sen­der, there might be the problem of deciding what is state interaction and what is not.

Blame (praise) may be act-oriented (specific-oriented) or structure-oriented (general-oriented). The act-oriented blame aims at criticizing concrete polit­ical acts and change policy. The struc­ture-oriented blame criticizes, seeks to change or even destroy the structure of the given system (ranging from the in­teraction system between the two actors to the environmental, global system). A third category would probably be actor-oriented blame, aimed at reducing an actor's position, without necessarily being aimed at structural change.

This distinction is made mainly for analytical reasons; of course there will be combinations of the two types of orientation. Moreover, even if that has not been intended by the sender, the act of blame for the purpose of changing policy may very often have the conse­quence of changing the structure, or vice versa. To take only two, in this

'Blame' as International Behavior 51

respect, contrary examples: the blaming of South Africa for its policy of apart­heid is mainly oriented at changing this very policy, but has probably had greater success in lowering this country's pres­tige in the world and worsening its structural position in other respects; and the case of the victorious belligerents' treatment of Germany after World War I is probably an example of purposive blaming oriented at reducing that actor's prestige and position generally and through this also changing its 'war­mongering' policy.3

There may seem to be an almost necessary connection between act-orien­tation and structure-orientation, in the sense that one empirically would find very few cases where the two aspects may be separated and did not in some way and to some degree, go together. Take the example of Sweden's blaming of the US policy in Vietnam. It might probably be stated (and I think some Swedish official did it) that this kind of blaming was only aimed at changing the policy pursued and did not in any way aim at attacking the very position or prestige of the US government generally. But US officials evidently did not take it that way: they perceived the criticism primarily as a means used by a Western country (that was the bad thing) to reduce its very prestige, in Swedish opinion and in the world.4

The forms of blaming or praising behavior are many. One may distin­guish between open and closed com­munication. Open blaming is the crit­icisms voiced in a speech by some state official, or generally the acts of political blaming which become generally or publicly known (to a greater audience, and to third states); closed blaming is the way of criticizing through diplomatic channels secretly and without calling the attention of third states. But another and a more important discrimination is

that between strong and moderate or weak blaming.

3. The measurement of blame The task of constructing scales for the measurement of the intensity of state behavior along the non-violent to vio­lent, or weakly to strongly blame-orient­ed behavior, have been taken up by sev­eral authors. Although starting from somewhat different conceptions of the range and forms of behavior, North et al. in their crisis analysis, Rummel on conflict behavior, and McClelland et al. with their 'event-interaction' study have all developed scales and methods, parts of which may be adapted to my purpose.5

In the following, I shall deal only with the blame aspect of behavior or interaction, as I am particularly inter­ested in conflict behavior. This leaves out a discussion of praise as positive sanction, a type of behavior which seems to be much neglected in literature. On the other hand, although I have started from the assumption that blame and praise were the two ends of one continuum, making blame-praise inter­action a zero-sum game, I have the feeling that this assumption under cer­tain conditions may be wrong.6

The diplomatic language, both as open and as closed communication, seems to be based on a cotume which consists of relatively commonly shared standards of behavior.7 When non-dip­lomatic behavior - the distinction be­tween diplomatic, or formalized behav­ior and non-diplomatic is neither sharp nor particularly important - is consid­ered, classification is more problematic.

Rummel offers a typology of conflict behavior, which ranks twelve more or less distinct types of behavior from 'Anti-foreign demonstrations' as the least, 'War' as the most conflicting type of behavior. Zinnes has a corresponding

4

52 Helge Hveem

number of categories, while McClelland and his collaborators, Martin and Young, use a higher number. 8

To some extent differences between these authors are semantic or concep­tual rather than theoretical and method­ological. What they share is an emphasis on non-violent forms of behavior, while Kahn in his well-known escalation lad­der concentrates on violent behavior.9

While Kahn's scheme for my purposes is too unspecific on the non-violent be­havior side, I believe on the other hand that the classification should not be too specific or detailed either. Martin and Young in their study have collapsed the initial twenty-three into eight categories, which seems to be more appropriate both methodologically and theoretically.

Rummel on the one hand, Martin and Young, and Zinnes on the other differ in their ranking of one category of blame, consisting of repulsion of diplom­atic representatives or breaking of dip­lomatic relations etc., the former ranking such acts low, the latter high. I am in­clined to take the latter's position. As I said before, it may be a problem to decide what constitutes the bottom and the top of the scale, i.e. what acts should be considered the most moderate forms of blame, and what acts occur at a point where the conflict is escalated into the threatening to use, or the outright use of violence. Such problems evidently will have to be decided on the basis of empirical evidence.

One may introduce several indicators of strong-weak blame to make the scale even more discriminating, but this would certainly make such a measure too over­loaded. I venture only two. Open blame is generally stronger than closed and the blame voiced by the top representatives of an actor is stronger than when it is voiced by someone lower down in the internal hierarchy of that actor. Id est: it is more of a blame when it comes

from President Nixon than from some State Department spokesman.

The scale which I propose is partly my own and partly based on those al­ready mentioned. It is:

(1) Non-official blame: anti-foreign demon­strations, v iolat ions of R's property in S, etc.

(2) Official blame: Political or diplomatic talks, exchanges; indirect criticism, initial 'points' are made, disagreement verified.

(3) Mild blame: memorandum, request of explanation, direct criticism.

(4) Medium blame: complaints, protests, ac­cusations.

(5) Strong blame: strong protests, threat of reprisals, warning, demand of excuse, heavy criticisms, expulsion of private citizens.

(6) Punishment: repulsion of diplomatic re­presentatives, breaking of diplomatic relations, breaking of cultural agree­ments , etc.

(7) Strong punishment: outright denunciation, breaking of political or military agree­ments , withdrawal from alliance, etc.

Blame, of course, may be combined with other acts and thus be bolstered up by or bolster up those other acts or means of conflict behavior. In that respect, we may distinguish between four levels:

(1) Blame used alone. (2) B lame combined with the threatening of

concrete, 'physical' punishment, e.g. eco­nomic sanctions - what in the Kahn ladder is cal led 'subcrisis maneuvering'.

(3) B lame combined with the implementation of such threats, and/or the threatening of serious physical punishment.

(4) B lame combined with the implementation of serious physical punishment, e.g. severe sanctions, mobi l izat ion of troops, acts of military reprisals or warnings, etc.

Clearly, this is where we reach the 'brink' in the escalation process, where the limit between non-violent and violent conflict is reached and by-passed, and where blame stops being the important act and becomes ritualistic, merely ac­companying the other, stronger acts of conflict behavior.

'Blame' as International Behavior 53

What we have so far looked into is the distinctions between strong and moderate blaming. There are at least three other dimensions for the qualifica­tion of the act of blaming: its volume, its support, and its scope. Let us briefly state what they imply.

The volume of blaming is the num­ber of times the blame is made at dif­ferent time points during a given period. The support of the blame is expressed by the number of actors taking part in the blaming. The scope of the blame is the number of issues which the blame is based on. In one single expression of these dimensions — volume, support and scope taken together - I have what I shall call the blame intensity.

4. Blame: purposes and consequences What are the purposes of blaming? And what are its consequences - intended and non-intended? These questions will occupy us for most of the rest of this paper. In discussing them I shall make use of the four dichotomies introduced earlier. I have already taken the posi­tion that blame is definitely a kind of non-violent behavior. Thus, when it is accompanied with or 'overrided' by violent behavior in some form or other, we should no longer occupy ourselves with blaming as the main behavioral aspect, since the violent aspects will usually be considered more important, both to the two parties concerned, and to third parties.

This is the situation where blaming is used, or has as its consequence, to escalate a conflict possibly onto the 'brink' where other and especially vio­lent means are taken into use. But the act of blaming may also be used for the purpose of de-escalating a conflict, for instance in the sense that the blamer for some reason compensates for reduce-ment in the use of violent (or other non­violent) means by increasing the blame

volume and scope. His reason may be that he wants to keep the total conflict with another actor at the same level, or as high as possible, but below the level of violent conflict.

As already mentioned, blame may be a means of policy chosen due to lack of other means which can be used: the case of the small power with no means of military or economic sanctions to in­flict or threaten is evident. But it may also, both by the great and the small, be deliberately chosen among several means which may be at hand, some of them violent. When an actor in a con­flict situation chooses the non-violent way of acting to violent means, easily available and in some respects perceived as more 'effective', this might be said to be an important aspect. In some ways it may even be said to constitute a positive element of conflict behavior, since non-violent behavior is preferred to violent (a preference which most often should be considered positive, although important exceptions, e.g. the liberation of occupied or colonized areas, may be found) and since it provides a 'safety-valve' both in a bilateral relationship, and in the wider multi-actor system, which may release latent aggression un­der control.

McClelland has put particular empha­sis on analyzing the sources of and rea­sons for external opposition toward the United States, and he has made several proposals to that respect. Briefly, they are: differing national interests; differing national 'style'; war companionships are weakened, i.e. a weakening of old loyal­ties; 'secondary conflicts'; ideological differences; and what he calls 'collision courses'. McClelland formulates a re­search program which inter alia will aim at finding the ratio of American 'out­puts' toward other actors to the opposi­tion (and threatening opposition) from outside. 1 0

54 Helge Hveem

While the program is sufficiently con­crete to be a useful guide to others, it seems too much based on the source which the author himself names the na­tional interest. The intent of this paper is to look as much as possible for sym­metry in the relationship between the actors as well as try to keep a symmetric outlook ourselves.

North et al. are more in line with such principles. They also present a number of hypotheses on the behavior of a sender-receiver relationship, and of the international system, in situations of varying degrees of reward and punish­ment, or differing perceptions of, expec­tations of such outcomes. The sender-receiver relationship is most systemat­ically explored by Rummel who more than anyone else has developed behavior analysis on the level of the dyad.

While there are works in that direc­tion in the Rummel 'school', 1 1 the other authors and schools mentioned seem to be relatively free of theory which relates state behavior to the structure oi the international system, or to the structure of the dyad (which of course is also an international system). To me this aspect seems to be the most interesting one. A theory of blame behavior should take notice of the fact that the international system is stratified, that many sender-receiver relationships will be highly asymmetric, and that there are varying degrees and forms of distances between actors.

Before I develop these problems fur­ther, I shall mention four factors which will have some relevance both to the purposes, the forms and the conse­quences of blaming. Three of the factors relate to the sender-receiver relationship primarily, the fourth involves third par­ties (which may also be involved in the two first mentioned factors): (a) The sincerity of the blame, i.e. the degree to which the blame sent is 'be­

lieved' or taken for its 'face value' by the receiver (and third parties). Several factors may work in the direction of reducing the sincerity behind the act of blame, perhaps to the point where the blame appears as 'quasi-blaming'.

One such factor may be that the re­lationship between sender and receiver on other and important interaction di­mensions has a content of active and friendly exchanges. From the point of view of the receiver - and of third par­ties, to the extent that they know of the situation - the sincerity of the blaming in such a context may be reduced, and consequently its effect. Examples of this kind of relationship are easily found, for instance in the case of several small actors vis a vis USA. Or, perhaps more important and outstanding: the US blaming of the Soviet-Warsaw pact invasion of Czechoslovakia while at the same time making it clear that other basic relations, some of them stemming from mutual interests, would not be subject to sanctions. 1 2

On the other hand, the very fact that an actor blames another while at the same time keeping on with such other friendly interactions as trade, official visits, cultural exhibitions etc. with the other one, may be increasing the sincer­ity of the blaming. That is: the fact that the sender is considered a 'friend' gives him more access, he is really listened to; when you are criticized by an acknow­ledged friend, that most certainly has to be taken seriously. It is evident that such reasoning in fact lies behind much blaming behavior and blame evaluations.

The essential question here seems to be the historical background of the re­lationship between two given actors. A relationship which has been built up consistently and over some time and which contains either positive or nega­tive interaction on a range of dimen­sions (or the more important interac-

'Blame' as International Behavior 55

tional dimensions) is more decisive for the sincerity to be attached to the sender by the receiver than a more inconsistent, short-lasting and single-dimensional re­lationship. We shall return to this point later on, in another context.

Another part of this sincerity aspect is what might be called the 'reducibility' of the blaming - the tendency of the receiver to rationalize, to explain away the blame sent on him. The receiver may for instance evaluate the blame as sent for domestic political reasons: the lead­ership in the sender country uses the act of blaming, the picking of some out­side scapegoat, to bolster its own polit­ical position inside the country. Or per­haps a more genuine kind of rationaliza­tion: the receiver accuses the sender for onesidedness, for having been misled by propaganda, for not really knowing or appreciating the policy or the motives of the receiver.

(b) The second factor has to do with what I shall call the blame tolerance of the receiver actor, i.e. his ability to stand blame without being affected by it. That is: different actors may stand different degrees of blaming in different situations, so that the expected result (e.g. change in policy) does not show up. Factors which increase tolerance are the political decisiveness or will (to over­see or exclude the content of blaming from its information channels) of the actor; an authoritarian (domestic) polit­ical system which may isolate that will from outside or inside pressure; and the power of the actor which can be used to counteract or even prevent blaming by deterring another actor from blaming or for instance from escalating blaming into more serious, violent acts, or which can be used to 'buy out the blamers' -foreign aid is the obvious example here - or at least modify the blame intensity.

In connection with this last point, it should be stressed that blame, even if

it is of a relatively high intensity, does not de facto necessarily lead to change in policy or position. But, our assump­tion then is that if an actor, under the burden of a heavy blame volume, wants to continue its policy or keep its posi­tion (e.g. capability to influence other actors) it has to compensate for the damage inflicted upon it by the blaming through the use of such other means as foreign aid, sanctions (for instance the threat of withdrawing foreign aid) etc.

One example, which seems to be both highly relevant and empirically correct, is the reaction of actors in the so-called 'third world' to the US policy in Vietnam: this has evidently not been so strong or damaging as one for several reasons would have thought (at least not among the actual leaderships of those actors). The reason for this of course may be that these actors, contrary to expectations, are not so interested in the Vietnam war and therefore do not care to make evalu­ations of it and of the actors involved. But it also seems safe to say that for a number of actors, their economic de­pendence on the USA and related fac­tors have been at least as influential in the direction of non-blaming.

From this one may generalize that the fact of being powerful, big is perhaps the most important factor in the creation of blame tolerance: the topdog stands much more than the underdog. Or, the topdogs may even stand an immense intensity of blame, because they have so vast resources to draw compensation from or to deter blame with.

The development of the world's reac­tions to and views of the Soviet behavior in Czechoslovakia and the reactions of the Soviet Union to it will also be a point of empirical reference on this. In this case one would of course point to the two other tolerance-creating factors-will and authoritarianism (at least the last one) - as relatively more important

56 Helge Hveem

to explain that the Soviet Union, in spite of relatively intense blaming from the outside world, did not change its policy of occupation. 1 3 (This of course may be due to other factors and the same would be true in the case where the Soviet Union did or do make a change and for instance withdraw, but this we shall not discuss here.)

From what I have just been saying, I may once more stress that the stratifica­tion of international systems is an im­portant variable in the whole setting of blame tolerance and blaming effect. The general hypothesis is:

the topdog stands more blame from others and at the same time may cause more dam­age, obtain more effect in blaming others.

(c) The third factor is the frame of reference - the very norm or value scale used as the basis for blaming. There is no clear international consensus as to the relative strength of different acts of blame, and this lack of consensus may be even more felt when it comes to the international, formal and informal stan­dards of making judgements of actors. There is the UN Charter, there is the Human Rights Declaration, the Red Cross Convention, etc. which in some fields and to some extent at least must be considered a general standard of in­ter-state behavior. But different actors may put different emphasis on the var­ious pieces of content in such standards, and they most often do not give any priority to the different norms or to any hierarchy of values which can be uni­versally applied. Blamer and blamed may thus place different weight on one and the same act or behavior system.

One may probably distinguish be­tween universal (global) and regional or sub-system norm scales, e.g. the UN frame of reference may be different, in some situations and to some actors, from that of the Communist world, or the

Western world. Confusion or value clashes may result when different frames of reference are applied by sender and receiver. In such a situation, third party intervention as a 'judge' to the conflict, may be particularly relevant.

(d) The saliency of the issues involved in the blaming, or of the very blaming itself, may be of some importance, par­ticularly to the receiver. To the extent that the issues, the cases, etc. for which he is blamed are non-salient to him, he will tend to reduce the importance of the fact that he is being blamed. This may also be true with third parties in their position toward the sender-receiver relationship. Correspondingly, the more salient an issue is, the more seriously will the blaming be taken.

5. Blaming capability and blame effect Since I have expressed particular in­terest in the relation of blaming to the structure of an international system, it follows that what I called structure-oriented blame will also be of particular concern in the following. As I said be­fore, however, this is no important limi­tation of the perspective since act- and actor-oriented blaming will often have structural consequences or vice versa.

As will be clear from what has been said so far, structure-oriented blaming has implications on both the vertical and the horizontal axis of the structure. Vertically, it has most often conse­quences for the rank or prestige of the receiver, and thus for the rank distance (or symmetry/asymmetry) between the sender and the receiver. 1 4 It may also have certain consequences for the equi­librium of the given international sys­tem. Horizontally, it may have inte­grative or disintegrative functions, as already mentioned. Along the horizontal axis, it is also important to notice the role of the concept of political distance.

'Blame' as International Behavior 57

By political distance I mean the gen­eralized distance between two given ac­tors in the system as measured by their relative political position - their attitudes or opinions on the more basic political issues in the system.15 Studying the be­havior of any set of actors within a lar­ger system of actors - the global polit­ical system is the 'over-system' which we superimpose on other smaller sys­tems - the distance between two actors is always seen as relative to (all) other actors in the system. The anchoring or reference points most often used are the super-powers (ref. the series of UN studies we have had in recent years) and I think this both generally and in our case is a valid measure since they both in domain and scope are the system-dominant actors. 1 6 The two super-pow­ers are then chosen as end-points on a continuum and the political position of the different actors is induced from in­formation about their attitudes on a range of political questions, relative to the attitudes of the two.

The concept of political distance, apart from its role as a variable, struc­turing horizontally international systems

, for our purpose may be used in another context - the calculation of the prob­ability that blaming will have any effect on the receiver. Such calculation may be done by combining political distance with rank in the system. Our hypothesis concerning the role of political distance is that the effect of blaming increases with decreasing political distance. That is: if an actor is blamed by some other actor close to itself by political distance, the effect is considered to be greater both to its own position and to the relevant international system than if it is blamed by an actor at relatively great political distance.

Combining the two hypotheses we have made on rank distance and polit­ical distance, we arrive at the following

hypothesis, which is central in our scheme:

The greater the rank distance (or asymmetry) between the sender and the receiver, with the sender being the high-ranking actor, and the smaller the political distance between them, the greater will be the effect of the blame.

Political distance is taken to tell you something about a priori expectations of blame, from the point of view of the potential receiver and from third parties. To take only one example: USA (or any actors close to it by political distance) would usually expect heavy blaming from actors close to the Soviet Union. Such blame would be very 'ritualistic' at least in its consequences, and in the way it is evaluated by many third parties (if not by intention); it would be nothing to be disappointed about or take really seriously. The effect is zero. The blame of the non-aligned, neutralist, i.e. those actors which are situated between the two super-powers at some political dis­tance from both of them, would be more to care about, not to speak of the blame coming from actors close to the big one (dominant not only in the global system, but even more within 'its own' subsystem or subsystems, its spheres of influence to which the sender in this case may be­long). This kind of blame would gen­erally be highly unexpected (i.e. if it is of a certain blame volume) both to the blamed and to third parties. It would definitely not be ritualistic, but break with the rules of the system, which says that you should blame your foes and praise your friends.

The extreme case here is when the small, close-to-the-big actor and in im­portant respects dependent upon him, criticizes him heavily (e.g. Norway blaming USA). The not so extreme would be that some middle-range power or aspiring great power (depending on the rank categorizations made) criticizes 'its own' super-power. This clearly has

58 Helge Hveem

been the case in the relationship between USA and France under the Gaullist regime. 1 7

We have now indicated the relation­ship between rank distance and political distance when it comes to effect prob­ability calculation. But evidently a third dimension, what we above referred to as the blame intensity - which was a com­bined measure of the volume, the sup­port and the scope of the blame - must be drawn in at this point. We shall do that by constructing a combined formal expression of all three dimensions. Or more correct: two expressions, one for the case where the effect (on the re­ceiver) is studied, the other for the case of the sender's capability of blaming, his capability of creating any effect. These expressions or formulas are called blaming effect estimate and blaming capability estimate, respectively.

From what we have said about the role of the three dimensions, one might conclude that political distance is es­sentially a means of reducing both ef­fect and capability. The role of rank (used here more or less synonymously with power) seems to be somewhat dif­ferent: when the focus is on the effect, it has the same function as political distance - reducing the effect. But in the case of blaming capability, rank or power has a 'positive' function of in­creasing that capability.

In presenting these estimates, we make use of the following abbreviations:

R 8 is the rank of the sender R r is the rank of the receiver D is the political distance between the

sender and the receiver SI is the sincerity of the b lame I is the intensity of the b lame SA is the saliency of the g iven issue(s) to

the receiver k is a constant

After this I may present the estimate for the capability of blaming (C) as

and blame effect (E) as

The more precise measure of rank, intensity, sincerity, and saliency will not be dealt with in any detail in this con­text. Measures for ranking nations are relatively many and well developed.1 8

In a formal measure of intensity in ad­dition to formal quantitative expressions for volume, support and scope, one of course will have to include a figure re­presenting the position of the blame ac­cording to the blame scale I developed. Sincerity may be defined as ranging be­tween 0 as minimum and 1 as maximum sincerity.1 9

Political distance, however, should be explained in some detail. I propose that it is measured by UN voting behavior over the period of one year because this is probably the best indicator of a gen­eral political attitude or opinion position developed so far, and because the USA-USSR continuum has been used by sev­eral authors already. 2 0

The scale of political distance could of course be categorized in different ways and by more variables than the UN voting behavior. Clustering accord­ing to this variable might be used in the sense that the clusters one finds are taken as categories in the general scale. But such voting clusters may and do change over time; what we need then is both adjustments of the scale, but also some sort of a more durable category set.

In Figure 1, a scale of seven categories is constructed and each category de­scribed (the end-points are not counted as categories). The scale may be used in the USSR-USA relationship, but could also have a more general application for systems which are more or less polar-

'Blame' as International Behavior 59

ized between two relatively equally pow­erful actors. By counting the number of categories between the sender and the receiver, one gets the generalized polit­ical distance between them.

6. Blame and the international system Blame behavior activity may and should of course also be related to political distance in any sender-receiver relation­ship, i.e. a system of any two actors. This would in fact be necessary in order to register all acts of blame behavior in the total system. Such behavior in a dyad may then be correlated with the rank distance and the political distance between the two actor components. Concerning rank distance, my hypo­thesis would be:

Blame behavior activity tends to be positively correlated with rank distance in the sense that the high ranking will blame the low ranking more than vice-versa.

This would be in accordance with top-dog-underdog interaction on other di­mensions. 2 1

The relationship between political distance seems more problematic. A common sense hypothesis would be that blame behavior activity increases with increasing political distance: the greater the distance the less danger there is for counter-blame or other measures from the receiver. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, the blame sent from a great political distance tends to be perceived as insincere and thus ineffec­tive. Thus, it seems that the most in­teresting blame behavior - and perhaps the most active, since actors at great

distance, knowing that their blame is perceived as mostly 'ritualistic', will probably tend not to be such active blamers as would be expected - occurs at some crucial 'middle political dis­tance'.

Political distance may also be related to the integration-disintegration dicho­tomy. Blame sent between actors at great political distance will not have any great effect, since the system in this case will be rather disintegrated in advance. Non-blaming within such a system over a considerable period of time, on the other hand, may have an integrative effect.

When blame occurs between actors not far from each other in political distance however, it will most often have a disintegrative effect on the rela­tionship between them. Corresponding­ly, a lasting situation of non-blaming between two actors at close political distance will have an integrative effect, possibly to the extent of making them one single actor.

I have not considered drawing in geo­graphical distance. This is due to the impression that geographical distance is not among the important factors for this kind of interaction, or that at least it is of decreasing importance. On the other hand, research has shown that geographical distance in the particular sense of sharing borders is the one rela­tively important variable for explain­ing violent conflict behavior. 2 2 This di­mension then and its possible role in this context should perhaps be consid­ered. It might be that the blaming of a

60 Helge Hveem

neighbor in some important respects is the most effective and the most fatal kind of blaming.

If we now consider the global system, where the USA-USSR continuum is used as the main axis, we may make a diachronic analysis which may give us some insight into the functions of blame and its relationship to other forms of behavior.

The acts of blaming which have oc­curred in the relationship of every single actor with each of the two super-powers may then be analyzed and possible caus­al relationships may also be studied by correcting for or drawing in major events, such as those already mentioned: the US Vietnam intervention, and the Soviet Czechoslovakian intervention. The plotting in or the clustering of the other actors will result in the picture of system changes indicated in Figure 2.

The idea is that the Figure in some rough way gives a combined expression to the effects of blaming communicated from other actors to each one of the two super-powers when both political distance and rank are taken into con­sideration. The time points chosen are arbitrary and may be changed. The line drawn is of course highly tentative and would indicate the average position of the totality of actors minus the two (n - 2). This in turn is an indication of whether the system at any time point is in equilibrium or not (as measured by this single dimension). I think it is fairly correct to assume that the average over time will be somewhat to the US side of the zero line taking the Western dom­ination of the world system into con­sideration.

Our choice of events or concrete issues as a reference for blaming of course is not the only way of looking at it, al­though many actors probably do look at it in that way. There is also the de­liberately chosen symmetrical outlook

Fig. 2. A tentative assessment of the position of the blame balance point of the universal

system over time

T h e unbroken line drawn will represent the average position of the n - 2 actors in the system, vis a vis the two super-powers.

as the platform to 'start with'; the ob­vious case would be the Gandhi or Nkrumah type of neutralism which makes evaluations of the super-powers based on symmetry (they are basically equally good or bad) the point of de­parture. 2 3

This kind of analysis should evidently be compared with analyses carried out on other types of data but with the use of very much the same behavioral and structural dimensions. This would shed more light on the questions of the fruit-fulness of the theory or approach I have outlined, but could also show interesting relations between the dimensions which have interested us here, and other di­mensions. Some fundamental questions could be answered, e.g.: Is there a right of free speech, of free criticism, in the society of national actors?

To the extent that concrete and identi­fiable events - acts performed by identi­fiable actors - are the basis of blaming, the reference of evaluation, we need some kind of a scaling of types of acts according to what blame intensity they 'deserve'. This could for instance show

'Blame' as International Behavior 61

us whether or not it is so that big actors get less blame than they deserve, small more. But this is back to the problem of the lack of universal norm systems men­tioned above. I shall not go into this problem here.

One should, as already indicated, study the role of blame and praise within different systems: the global su­per-power oriented system, the interna­tional multi-actor sub-systems, and the two-actor systems. The question of pos­sible correlations with other forms of behavior or interaction should be stud­ied to get an overall picture of the net­work of interactions or exchanges in the system, the relations between affective (blaming) and utilitarian (trading) be­havior, between different types of af­fective behavior, etc.

7. The balance of blame The problem of the equilibrium of any given system poses certain questions. How long can a system bear a heavy blame volume from actors with high capability and with the probability of great effect placed on one or more of its important (or system-dominant) actors without being changed? How long can any one actor, not very high in rank and with relatively low blame tolerance, stand up against heavy blam­ing from a number of other actors, among them the more important, with­out losing position?

The first question raises another more concrete or specific question: how long could the US leadership have stood un­affected by outside blaming, 2 4 keeping up with its Vietnam policy and generally pursuing the role of a 'policeman' in the third world? And when at the same time the Soviet Union's general image became more and more of the Tashkent peace-maker outlook - how long could the global system (and sub-systems) have been unaffected by this develop­

ment, in the sense that its equilibrium would not have been changed?

There are several answers to these and related questions. USA may be said to be able to stand all the blaming she could get through her vast resources. And due to the (contended) fact that the system's equilibrium or balance has usually tended to be very much in her favor, she could take the risk of losing some of her position throughout the world without seeing the balance - one might call it the 'moral balance' - tip in favor of the other party. Now the prob­lem does not seem acute: USSR solved it in Czechoslovakia.

France of the Fourth and the be­ginning of the Fifth Republic would be an example of the not-so-high in rank and the low-tolerance actor which could not in the long run stand up against heavy blaming from outside. Evidently it was not only, perhaps not first of all, the fact that she was blamed for her colonial policies which made her with­draw from Indochina and Algeria: she was to a large extent forced out. But blaming seems to have played an im­portant role. The more so perhaps in the case of Suez 1956, where the three ag­gressors had to withdraw exceptionally quickly having received heavy blaming from both friends and foes. This is the case where the two super-powers join in blaming some third party. In that case the probability that an actor could stand the blaming without being affected is relatively low and it becomes perhaps more remote the lower that actor is in rank. When the two great super-powers join, there is an informal and inapplic­able High Court (or perhaps rather po­lice magistrate) decision.

The world has its enfants terribles or outcasts - the actors blamed by all or most of the other actors at some time. They are middle-range or small actors; the great power being an outcast is

62 Helge Hveem

rather improbable, unless having lost a war, i.e. Germany, after the First and Second, and Japan after the Second World War. The obvious examples are South Africa and Portugal. Why is it that these actors, in spite of the rela­tively heavy blaming volume they are subject to, do not change their policies - why does blame not seem to have any effect upon them?

One reason would be their high blame tolerance, their authoritarian re­gimes, their will or fanaticism, or their value systems which seem to be rather different from those of most other ac­tors. But it is probably as likely that the explanation for the lack of evident effect is their affiliations with important ac­tors, i.e. the Western great powers: the blaming of these actors is both moder­ate and - more important - has a very low credibility, because of the other kinds of relationships which they keep with the two outcasts. Perhaps one im­portant function of the blaming of such outcasts is that it may be used to ce­ment or hold together a difficult and at the same time much needed unity of the senders (the black African blaming of the white Southern African is probably one case in point).

The lesson to be drawn from our dis­cussion of the effects of blaming on an international system, especially its dis-equilibrating effect, would logically be that to keep the necessary equilibrium and symmetry, blame has to be distri­buted evenly at least between the domi­nant actors of that system. This point is touching a much-used and much dis­puted rule in Norwegian political de­bates: when blaming the Soviet Union (or USA) one should not forget the other party's or side's bad acts; when criticizing USA policy in Vietnam one should not forget Soviet policies in East­ern Europe. Quid pro quo at any time point!

This might be said to be a rather con­servative, non-dynamic view which seems to restrict somewhat the intensity of blame which it may seem fair to send on isolated time-points or on specific events. Nevertheless, it seems to be one of the informal international rules ac­tually working. And the actors in ques­tion have usually been able to solve the problem themselves by in fact showing that blame 'deserved' may be distributed relatively evenly.

Or, they have been able to control blame, particularly from those actors which stand relatively close to them­selves (which fall within their respective 'spheres of influence'). The dominant actors may point to the danger implied in their being intensely blamed by 'their own friends': this will tip the balance in the favor of some other dominant actor and thus threaten the senders them­selves. Or, the dominant actor may only point to the duty of close allies of not behaving disloyally towards their defen­sor (if military relations are important) or benefactor (if financial aid is impor­tant). Or, he may simply point to the necessity of maintaining internal con­sensus, including non-blaming, within the sub-system, as an aim in itself, or -which is perhaps as likely the case - in order that the dominant actor within that sub-system will be able to main­tain its dominance. An empirical point of reference would be the last Com­munist world conference, where the in­vasion of Czechoslovakia was criticized by some of the delegations, and where the Soviet Union, moreover, tried with­out being particularly successful, to get the conference to put the blame for the Sino-Soviet border disputes on China. In such cases, non-blaming becomes the interesting type of behavior.

On a lower level, there is the equilib­rium problem in the relations between two actors. The one may feel that the

'Blame' as International Behavior 63

other is blaming him so much (more than he himself blames the other) that he has to retort, either by blaming or by other means, just to keep some kind of an equilibrium between them, so that the other does not get a permanent 'moral superiority' or political grip on him.

Or, one may have the case where an actor starts blaming another actor, or 'over-blaming' him (blaming him more than he objectively or relatively de­serves) just to compensate for that other actor's superiority over himself or pos­sibly grip on him on other dimensions. The case of Guinea, which has been heavily blaming the USA for some years while at the same time getting more aid and investments from that country than from any other country (including the Soviet Union, which on the contrary has been very much praised by Guinea) might be an example of this kind of relation. 2 5 Of course it may also be explained by the deliberate policy of USA in this case not to let the fact of being blamed by the recipient make it cease giving aid to i t . 2 6 It may want to give it for other reasons.

8. The system as a field: a note on the methodology

Instead of the linear model which has been used so far, one should consider using the sociogrammatic method, which in many concrete international systems would seem to tap more of reality than the linear method. Moreover, it may better visualize my theory.

Before discussing this point, we should make it clear that the method of data collection of course would have to in­clude some ways of assessing the blame-praise relations in any pair of actors in the system. This must be done by the use of the variables we have discussed, by operationalizing them for quantita­tive analysis, and the results may be

presented in a complete matrix. Such a matrix could cover both measures of blaming effect and blaming capability and measures of actual blaming be­havior over a certain time period. Fig. 3 below may explain the point.

Fig. 3. The matrix for presenting blaming capability, blaming effect and actual blaming

behavior: the case of blaming capability

One rubric contains measures for the sender-receiver relation, as follows:

A similar matrix would then have to be worked out for the case of blaming effect, with information on the E a , Eb etc. estimates and the blame received by the various actors from all other actors.

One step in the direction of improve­ment of the linear model would be to make use of the geometric matrix, while keeping the bipolar structure with two dominant actors as checking points. The less dominant or non-dominant actors are plotted in relative to the two points, but in the field; this is tentatively shown in Figure 4.

This graph is in some ways more rep­resentative of the concrete international system. But it still does not satisfactorily deal with the recent developments to­ward some degree of multipolarity, e.g.

64 Helge Hveem

be difficult to catch, even in the model we have shown in Figure 4.

The logical thing then would be to construct a third model based on three or four dominant actors. But this raises serious problems and, especially in the case of a system of a greater number of actors, might be quite impossible. If we chose three dominant actors and set out to assess the position of the other ac­tors relative to the three, we might see that there is not one single point which might represent the position of the actor in question relative to all three. What we, at the most would get, is some rough assessment of an area within which the actor in question would be found.

We should probably have to construct a cube to cope with this, but even that would not be satisfactory. And in the case of four dominant actors, it seems quite impossible to construct any model which could be used to visualize the system.

N O T E S

* This is a first draft paper. I am indebted to Professor Johan Galtung and to the staff of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo , particularly N i l s Petter Gleditsch and Kjell Skjelsbaek for valuable comments on the paper and the ideas presented. It can be identified as PRIO-publicat ion 2 0 - 9 .

1 Robert C. North , Ole R. Holst i , M. G e o r g e Zaninovich, and D i n a A. Zinnes , Content Analysis. A Handbook with Applications for the Study of International Relations Crisis (Evanston: Northwestern Univers i ty Press, 1963) p. 147. 2 I am particularly thinking of the leading countries of the 'Bandoeng group', such as Uni ted Arab Republic , Yugos lavia , India. 3 That the result in the long run of this b laming actually may be said to be quite the con­trary is another thing. 4 T h e blaming reached a 'peak' w h e n o n e of the then leading members of the Swedish government, Mr. Olof Palme, n o w Prime Minister of Sweden, participated in a demonstration in Stockholm against the US pol icy in Vie tnam and to the support o f N o r t h Vietnam. T h e US government recalled the US ambassador to Sweden and for s o m e t ime there were rather bad relations between the t w o countries. One of the main l ines of thought behind the American behavior towards the Swedish b lame seems to have been that they expected a declared neutral or non-aligned country like Sweden not to take sides in controversial international disputes. This v iew was strongly rejected by the Swedish government w h i c h maintained its right to criticize whenever and w h o e v e r it f o u n d it correct to criticize. Thus , i t took the pos i t ion of 'active neutralism'. 6 Cf. N o r t h et al., op cit.; R u d o l p h J. R u m m e l , 'Dimensions of Confl ict Behavior within and between Nations' , General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research,

Fig. 4. A field (geometric) model of blaming relationships

toward more than two dominant actors. The very fact that Communist China is not a member of the UN points to one important argument against using the data from the UN voting studies as a basis for the construction of political distance. And the emergence of China - however much disputed - as a third super power also speaks against the bi­polar model. It may also be argued that the position of gaullistic France would

'Blame' as International Behavior 65

VIII (1963), pp. 1-50; Charles McClel land, 'Access to Berlin: T h e Quantity and Variety of Events , 1948-1963' , in J. Dav id Singer (ed.), Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence ( N e w York: T h e Free Press, 1967), pp. 159-86. 6 F o r instance, there may be situations where praise is a form of conflict behavior, and correspondingly where b lame is non-confl ict behavior. B l a m e at least may have the effect of creating interaction where such did not exist, giving it a posit ive function in that respect. 7 Cf. Haro ld Nico l son , Diplomacy (London: Oxford University Press, 1963, 3rd ed.). 8 Rudo lph J. Rummel , 'A Social F ie ld of Confl ict Behavior' , Peace Research Society: Papers, IV, Cracow Conference, 1965; D i n a A. Zinnes , 'The Express ion and Perception of Hosti l ity in Prewar Crisis: 1914', in J. D a v i d Singer (ed.), op . cit. pp. 85 - 119 ; McClel land, op. cit.; W a y n e R. Martin and Robert A. Y o u n g , 'World Event-Interaction Study: Pi lot Study Report' (University of Michigan, 1966) m i m e o .

T h e scales they propose are:

Rummel

1. Anti- foreign demonstrations

2. Negat ive sanctions

3. Expel or recall ambassador

4. Expel or recall lower rank

5. Severance of diplomatic rela­tions

6. Accusat ions

7. Protests

8. Threats

9. Mobil izat ions

10. T r o o p movements

11. Military act ion

12. War

Zinnes

1. Shirking obligations

2. Preventing press from misleading public opinion

3. Us ing events against opponent

4. C o o l relationship

5. Tolerating agitation against others

6. Reproaching the other

7. Conspiracy

8. Making demands, diplomatic rupture

9. Getting m a x i m u m

10. Mobi l izat ion

11. Declarat ion of war

12. Destruct ion

McClelland

1. A c c e d e Withdraw

2. Request 3. Propose 4. Bargain

Convey 5. Abstain

Protest 6. Reject

D e n y 7. Accuse 8. D e m a n d 9. Warn

Threaten 10. Decree 11. Demonstrate 12. F o r c e 13. Attack

Martin and Young, col lapsed categories:

I Withdraw II Col laborate

III Bargain (mild): quest ion, request, propose IV Bargain (medium): accuse, compla in V Bargain (defend): deny, reject

VI Bargain (strong): warn, threaten, demand V I I Punish: break relationship, expel

VIII Coerce: seize, force

9 H e r m a n Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios, T h e H u d s o n Institute, 1965. K a h n has 44 'steps' in his ladder, ranging from 'Ostensible crisis' to 'Spasm or insensate war'. 1 0 Charles A . McClel land, ' A Proposal t o Measure and A n a l y z e Opposi t ion and Threat Ac­tions of Other Countries directed toward Uni ted States' Pol icies Abroad' , Department of Polit ical Science, University of Michigan, January 1967 (mimeo) . 1 1 To ment ion one example only, not who l ly into the 'Rummel school' , cf. Ni l s Petter Gle-ditsch, 'Rank Theory, F ie ld Theory and Attributive Theory: Three Approaches to International Behavior' , paper written for the Conference of secondary data analysis, Institut für verglei­chende Sozialforschung, Co logne . 1 2 I am particularly thinking of the affirmations of the US government on the eve of the invasion that s o m e of the major issues, such as negotiations on disarmament and reduction on the anti-missile programs, w o u l d not be affected by the invasion. 1 3 This o f course may be due to other factors and the same w o u l d be true in the case where

5 Journal of Peace Research

66 Helge Hveem

the Soviet U n i o n does m a k e a change in its pol icy, which does not seem very likely and which will not be discussed here. 1 4 As R u m m e l shows, 'rank distance' i s highly correlated with 'power distance', and in this context the t w o concepts are seen as most ly synonymous . Cf. Rummel , 'A Social Fie ld of Conflict Behavior'. 1 5 Our concept is not dissimilar to the concept used by R u m m e l - 'value distance', which in his terminology means 'the existence of mutual ly incompatible or contradictory goals or values', cf. ibid. 1 8 This posit ion in further confirmed by the f indings of Martin and Y o u n g , op. cit. where they find that the Uni ted States and the Soviet U n i o n (in that order) are the most active senders of blame-related acts and the highest-ranking receivers. 1 7 These relations, at least until very recently, have not been characterized by small political distance between the two . Thus , the 'Western sub-system' has undergone s o m e change since the first moderate voices of disapproval or criticism occurred in France in the middle of the 1950's. 1 8 See for instance Johan Galtung, Manuel M o r a y Araujo and S imon Schwartzmann, "The Latin-American System of Nat ions : A Structural Analysis ' . 1 9 The reason for not making this variable count stronger is s imply the impression that i t i s not so important or so potential ly effective, especially as third parties, w h o s e evaluations most often c o m e into the picture rather strongly m a y be expected not to p lace so m u c h weight on this variable as for instance the receiver. 2 0 Cf. Hayward Alker jr. and Bruce M. Russett, World Politics in the General Assembly ( N e w Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1965). 2 1 Johan Galtung, 'East-West Interaction Patterns', Journal of Peace Research, no . 2, 1966, pp. 146-77. 2 2 Cf. Rudolph J . Rummel , "The Relat ionship between Nat iona l Attributes and Foreign Con­flict Behavior', in J. D a v i d Singer (ed.), op . cit., pp. 187-214. 2 3 To some extent, neutralism of course i s a l so a reaction to events due to the l ikely discovery that both sides have behaved badly or nicely. 2 4 T h e inside, domest ic Amer ican blaming o f the pol icy in Vie tnam no doubt has played an important, perhaps m o r e important role in that respect. 2 5 Guinea's trade (in 1966) w a s distributed, a m o n g its principal trading partners, as fo l lows:

2 6 Cases such as Guinea have raised much criticism of the US foreign aid program in Con­gress. T h e argument has been that the Uni ted States should not trade extensively with nor extend aid and technical assistance to countries which behave unfriendly towards the Uni ted States. Such criticism has probably contributed m u c h to the reduction in recent years of US assistance to the developing countries.

S U M M A R Y

This article presents a d imens ion of state behavior which it proposes has theoretical and practical relevance to a theory of conflict, a theory of sanctions, and generally to theories of inter-state interaction. Being primarily theoretical, the article discusses the role of 'blame' in international polit ics, both as an isolated pattern of behavior, and in connect ion with other patterns of behavior. 'Blame' is seen as non-violent , conflict behavior. It is related to the stratification of international systems, and to the concept of political distance between two actors. Scales and estimates for measuring blame, bo th f rom the sender's and the receiver's point of view, are presented, and a discussion of methodolog ica l problems involved in an empirical test of the theory proposed, is m a d e at the end.

Imports Ex ports

United States 2.5 bil l ion G . F r . France 2.5 bi l l ion G. Fr. Soviet U n i o n 1.3 - Uni ted States 1.8 -China 1.1 -

'Blame' as International Behavior 67