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Level of Analysis Problem Introduction All human activities are ultimately based on individual behavior. But individual actions are magnified greatly through the roles individuals play in communities and organizations. A community is a social group or social grouping that shares common cultural and social values. A family is a social group that enhances the power, authority, and responsibilities of the mother and father. In patriarchal societies, the pater familias may have the authority of life and death over his children. Extended families, like clans and tribes, have traditional leadership positions that exercise influences over other individuals and families. Ethnic groups, what I have called ‘societal communities,’ various cultural minorities, religious communities, and nationalities are other communities defined by culture. A nation usually shares a common language, religion, history, and sense of belonging together (nationalism). An organization is a deliberately created voluntary association of otherwise distinct, usually unrelated, individuals. Voluntary associations may be formed for any purpose from bowling clubs to charitable groups to labor unions and business associations. Organizations may even be made up of a single individual who runs a business, office, or firm that is distinct from his family life. A doctor or lawyer may be a single person without even a secretary to make appointments. Individual firms, proprietorships, and small businesses are organizations with limited numbers of employees and resources. But once a business grows in the number of employees, it will become incorporated as a legal person and take on the characteristics of a bureaucratic organization. Bureaucracies are large formal organizations employing from hundreds to thousands of persons. They are hierarchically organized with a division of labor based on various functions. The oldest bureaucratic organizations surviving are the Roman Catholic Church and central governments with their various ministries, departments, agencies, and divisions. Military organizations headed by the commander-in-chief, often a king, a central staff with high ranking generals and admirals, and then the chain of command from generals, colonels, captains, and lieutenants. Officers are generally distinct from the enlisted soldiers. But other ministries have a similar hierarchical division. In the United States, executive departments go from the President, to Department Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, Assistant Secretaries, Bureau chief, Division head, to Section leader. Over the past hundred years, private bureaucracies have grown tremendously in number. Giant business corporations have formed and gown into multinationals. Global business and global finance have more resources available under the control of their Chief Executive Officer than do Presidents of entire countries. Giant corporations do not yet have their own militaries, although they do hire private security firms to protect their key personnel and installations. While these organizations are owned privately by their shareowners, who, in theory, control the company, it is their management and employees who really run these enterprises. The stockholders may be viewed as a voluntary association who elect the Board of Directors. The Directors hire (and fire) the Chief Executive Officer and other top managers. But it is the employees who produce the products and generate the profits. These employees are paid salaries, organized hierarchically by function, and have defined job responsibilities. They belong to a privately owned bureaucratically organized institutions. Max Weber, the German sociologist, wrote extensively about bureaucracies and defined them as an ideal type of organization. These private and public bureaucracies tremendously increase the power, control, and influence of the individuals who head them. In addition to their organizational roles, these individuals are usually very wealthy in their private capacities independent of their organizational roles. Their wealth and their position often reinforce each other. Social status and organizational position go hand in hand. Bill Gates was not only the CEO of Microsoft Corporation but is also a billionaire. In most countries there is a power elite composed of families with wealth and position. When dealing with international politics, we must concern ourselves with what is called “the level of analysis” problem. Levels of Analysis The Global System. We have defined the global system as a complex system of systems. It has been shown that this system can be analyzed usefully by differentiating three levels of analysis. The Level of Analysis Problem. The global political system may be analyzed from at least three different perspectives: the global level, the state level, and the individual level. Global Level. The world can be viewed from a global level of analysis as if we were a spaceship orbiting around our planet and mapping it. While the political divisions of our planet are not visible from outer space, these political divisions can be marked on a map. Territorially organized states are the primary international actors. The Great Powers continue to dominate international politics. But the Great Powers created a number of institutions through multilateral treaties that operate above the state level. In 1945 at the end of World War II, the victorious Great Powers established a series of intergovernmental organizations to preserve their own power and to help them manage the affairs of the world. The United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—GATT) are the most important of these transnational IOs. Global decisions are made by these Great Powers and these IOs. A global decision making process is being developed through the United Nations. However, no world government exists as yet. Various useful concepts have been created to analyze the global political system from a global perspective. These include the “global political system,” “global actors,” “state system,” “balance of power,” “global balance of power,” “regional balance of power,” “global system trends and transformation,” “hegemony,” “bipolarity,” “multipolarity,” “North-South,” etc. State Level. The world can also be viewed from the perspective of the individual states, which continue to be its primary building blocks. We have previously defined a state as having a) territory, b) human population, c) central government with effective control over its territory and people, and d) an elusive legal status called sovereignty. These central governments are the dominant political organizations within that state and its most powerful representatives externally within the international system. But states are more than their central governments. Central governments operate within the civil society of their particular country. In democratic states, the central governments are elected by their citizens, respond to organized interest groups, and are often dominated by a particular political party. There are many non-governmental actors active in the domestic politics of a particular state. To simplify matters, states may be divided into their central governments and their civil societies. A given state may be politically divided and the ruling central government may be limited by various opposition groups who, in democratic societies, may win the next election. When the global political system is analyzed from the state level of analysis, these two—central government and civil society—are often co-joined. The United States, France, and China are treated as states that act within the global system. These complex systems are treated as if they were individual actors. There is a tremendous degree of reification. States are alleged to have motives. Their primary aim is to maintain their survival and independence. National security and other national interests are ascribed to them. The foreign policy-making process of particular states, such as the United States, is dissected. Comparative foreign policy courses look at the world from the point of view of the states, usually the major powers, that were selected as typical for the world at large. Much of what passes for global level analysis is actually written from a state level of analysis. Typical concepts include “basis of state power;” “isolationism,” “internationalism,” “unilateral, bilateral, multilateral treaties,” “rational decision-making process,” etc. Individual level. Ultimately all behavior is individual behavior. Individuals make decisions on whether to go to war or to remain at peace. National interests are defined and applied by individuals. Individual soldiers kill and get killed. But the power of individuals is magnified when they become the leaders and members of large organizations. Large formal organizations (bureaucracies) are major actors both within states and within the global system. The President of the United States is a single individual but his power as an individual is amplified by his organizational role. The office and the man merge. International politics can be analyzed in terms of the individual decision makers—the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings, General Secretaries, Foreign Ministers, and Corporate Chief Executive Officers—of the great formal organizations that dominate their countries and the world. International politics becomes the game played by Bush, Putin, Merkel, and Kim Il-jong. These three levels of analysis are each relevant and provide insights into the global political system. They must be integrated with each other if we wish to understand this complex system of systems. Level of the Object to Be Explained to be Distinguished from the Level of Explanation. There is also an important distinction to be made between the object under investigation and the factors that are used to explain the object. For example, the global system can be explained in terms of the state actors that dominate the system. But the global system could also be explained in terms the individual leaders who control these central governments. Or the global system could be explained on a global level in terms of global warming, resource scarcity, migratory patterns, the clash of civilizations. If the foreign policy of a given state is under analysis, then the foreign policy can be explained in terms of global restraints (the external environment of the given state) and internal pressures (the internal environment). These internal pressures are aggregated and reified into what is often called the national interest. Finally, the foreign policy of a given country can be analyzed in terms of the personal idiosyncrasies of the leaders. This is the individual level of explanation. Thus the level of analysis of the object under investigation must be specified as well as the level of analysis in terms of which the object is explained (global, state, or individual). If the global system itself is the object of analysis, then it can be analyzed from a global perspective, a state perspective, or an individual perspective. One can look at it as a single global system from a global perspective. This refers to Level I. One can also look at the global system in terms of the state-societies that are its primary components. This refers to Level II. But one can also look at the global system in terms of the individual policy makers, who, in the last analysis, make the decisions that determine the fate of the world. This refers to Level III. Global System Explained in Terms of Level I: Global Level. The global system is explained in terms of the: Global system, regional systems, balance of power, globalization, world economy, ecological problems of Planet Earth, demographic changes, migration patters. Sum and product of the foreign policies of all the states of the world, but especially the foreign policies of the so-called great powers. actions and decisions of the United Nations and other Universal Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGOs). Regional IGOs: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Organization of American States (OAS); European Union (EU); other IGOs. Multi-National Corporations (MNCs); Transnational Organizations; Transnational Banks; and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Global System Explained in Terms of Level II: State-Society Level The Global System is explained in terms of the Central Governments of Sovereign States run by Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, Defense Ministers, and Foreign Policy Bureaucracy. [These individuals are at the individual level of explanation.] Other Governmental Bureaucracies, Congress, Courts. Sub-national governments: City of New York; State of New Jersey; etc Political Parties including opposition parties. Business Corporations, Trade Associations, Labor Unions, Private Bureaucracies, and Voluntary Associations operating outside their home country. Domestic Actors may at times have an international role ( churches; voluntary associations; veterans groups; immigrant groups; ethnic minorities; business organizations; labor organizations; ex-statesmen). Societal Communities: Ethnic Groups, National Minorities, Religious Movements, Indigenous People Global System Explained in Terms of Level III: Individual Level. President, Secretary of State, Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee of U.S. Senate, Governor, Ex-statesmen: Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton. Traveling politicians, businessmen, servicemen, tourists. State Behavior Explained in Terms of Level I: Global System Foreign Policy as a response to the international environment State Behavior Explained in Terms of Level II: Pressures within the State (Domestic Environment) Foreign Policy as a response to domestic environment. State Behavior Explained in Terms of Level III: Individual Policy Makers Foreign Policy as a response to the personality, understanding, and drives of the policy makers. Individual Behavior Explained in Terms of Level I: Global Factors Individual policy maker’s decision as based on global pressures. Individual Behavior Explained in Terms of Level II: Domestic Pressures Individual policy maker’s decision as based on pressures from within his/her domestic environment Individual Behavior Explained in Terms of Level III: Personal Drives Individual policy maker’s decision as based on his/her own initiative, understanding, and drives. Great Men in History theory.
Please note that the level of the object whose behavior is to be analyzed differs from the level of explanation.
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Dr. Harold Damerow |