On March 5, 1970, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) went into effect, having been ratified by 47 states including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The treaty legally bars these three nuclear powers from transferring atomic weapons to nonnuclear states and formally pledges those nonnuclear states signing the treaty to refrain from developing such weapons or acquiring them from other powers. It thus caps a long effort by the United States to inhibit—so long as it could not preclude—the spread of nuclear weapons and to avoid the potential instabilities associated with that spread.

Transnational interactions have been defined as “the movement of tangible or intangible items across state boundaries when at least one actor is not an agent of a government or an intergovernmental organization.” Correspondingly, transnational organizations can be defined as transnational interactions institutionalized. There may be several reasons why participants in transnational interactions may find it convenient to found a permanent organization and to endow it with a certain amount of authority to coordinate their interaction. First of all, the intensity of a particular kind of interaction may rise to such a level that more personnel and other resources are needed to regulate and facilitate the process. The most economical way of responding to this need may be to establish a joint secretariat. Second, although the intensity of exchanges between each pair of interacting entities may be constant, the number of participants may increase. This process results in a problem of coordination and the need for a coordinating agent in the form of, for example, an international body. To put it slightly differently, institutionalization tends to follow multilateralization. Third, although neither of the above conditions may dbtain, an organization may be founded to achieve fast action in emergencies requiring joint operation. Finally, an organization, and in particular its officers, may serve as mediator and arbitrator in situations of conflict and competition between interacting members. Such activities are, for example, promoted by the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission.

One of the most heartening trends in research on international organizations and international affairs is the current emphasis upon an empirical, as opposed to a merely theoretical, approach to an understanding of problems. This approach involves a series of distinctive elements. A hypothesis must be offered and its terms must be defined in ways that permit observation of events and collection of data on the presence or absence of the defined items. Data must be collected systematically, rather than eclectically, to ensure the consideration of those events which do not fit the hypothesis as well as those which do. Wherever possible data is reduced to numerical form and various statistical tests are applied to determine, for example, positive or negative correlations, and to compute the statistical significance of those correlations. Conclusions are then drawn on the basis of the results of the statistical operations. While such efforts are often time-consuming and tedious, even with the aid of a computer, the results of such an effort have the enormous value of demonstrably reflecting reality. Presumably, these results can be replicated by other observers and, since the methodology has been explicitly articulated, methodological defects can be detected and their effect on the results can be fully evaluated.

As they pursue their goals, actors—whether individuals, groups, or states—attempt to consume goods and services of various types. Generally they try to obtain such goods through private action. Thus, individuals clothe and entertain themselves by means of their individual actions in various marketplaces. Similarly, states will attempt to achieve goals and put policies into effect through their own actions. They will trade with other countries, develop defensive capabilities, and produce scientific knowledge substantially through their own efforts. States behave, then, as if they were private consumers in a market economy.

Part II focuses on transnational organizations, but the essays themselves are quite diverse. Louis T. Wells, Jr., considers the best known set of transnational organizations, multinational business enterprises, and Peter D. Bell discusses the offspring of one of these enterprises, the Ford Foundation. On the less economic side of transnational relations Ivan Vallier analyzes the Roman Catholic church as a transnational actor, and J. Bowyer Bell explores transnational revolutionary movements. Since these organizations are quite dissimilar, the authors' conclusions cannot be neatly summarized. Many points made in part II refer only to one organization or set of organizations.

I am happy to respond to the invitation to comment on Bruce Russett's and John Sullivan's most useful and sensible article. The concept of collective goods must play a starring role in any adequate theory of international organization and cooperation so there is every reason to encourage work of this kind. Russett's and Sullivan's article is, moreover, worthy of extension and criticism on many specific points. On some of these points I have minor technical (or in some cases expositional) criticisms. But relevant as such technical issues can be, they attract only a specialized interest and are of far less practical importance than Russett's and Sullivan's central concern with the conditions under which more international collective goods can be obtained. They ask, in effect, how patterns of international organization and cooperation that could help to improve the inefficient, and at times even chaotic and violent, international system could in practice be attained.

The recent growth in the size and number of private business enterprises that operate in many countries has generated a great deal of speculation as to whether a form of international organization has been created which is able to frustrate the policies of the traditional nation-state. The enterprise with subsidiaries scattered around the globe clearly has the potential to evade the influence of many governmental policies. The firm can circumvent a tight monetary policy in one country by having an affiliate borrow in another country and transfer the funds across national borders. If direct transfers of capital from abroad are restricted, transfer prices, royalty payments, or open accounts between affiliates can be adjusted to bring in the needed financial resources. If taxes are high in one jurisdiction, profits that would be subject to tax can be shifted to another tax jurisdiction through manipulation of affiliate transactions. National labor unions and comparatively harsh labor legislation can be frustrated by moving production to facilities in another country when strikes or higher costs threaten a particular market. A governmental program aimed at increasing technical and managerial training to provide a larger domestic supply of skilled personnel may only generate technicians or managers for the multinational enterprise to shift out of the country, back to its head office or to other countries. Technology developed in one country—often through governmental support and often related to defense needs of governments—can be leaked quickly to other countries through the communication network of the multinational enterprise.

The study of integration provides a seemingly endless variety of theories, frameworks, approaches, definitions, terminology, and methodologies. An unfortunate consequence of this profusion and confusion is that research findings exhibit the same variety. For instance, studies of integration within the European Economic Community (EEC) can easily be divided into two types: those that find integration progressing steadily and even rapidly and those that find it stagnant.

”Foundations,” private, nonprofit institutions that make grants for public purposes, depend for their existence on the private accumulation of great wealth and on fiscal and moral incentives for its philanthropic use. Several European foundations, including the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Krupp Foundation, and the Nuffield Foundation, are now comparable in organization and size to the American leaders. But modern foundations, independently directed and professionally staffed, are principally an invention of twentieth-century industrial society in the United States.1 Of 32 foundations with assets exceeding $100 million, 29 are American.

International air transport is a microsystem which includes most of the variables of the international macrosystem. As Young W. Kihl has put it, for example, a functional international organization such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) operates within the milieu of the larger system, reflects the constraints of that system, and can, therefore, be examined in the context of world politics. The transport system combines political, economic, military, and important technical factors with the often contradictory objectives of international, transnational, national, and subnational actors. It is small wonder that comprehensive studies of the subject are difficult to find. None of these books is all-inclusive, but, of those which are original contributions, the range of disciplines represented in them is formidable: Included are the opinions of a political scientist (Kihl), two professors of law (Thomas Buergenthal and K. G. J. Pillai), one economist (Mahlon R. Straszheim), and a professor of international business (Robert L. Thornton). The latter two are the most policy oriented overall. Pillai concentrates on the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an association of the carriers themselves, and Buergenthal and Kihl focus on ICAO, an association of states and a specialized agency of the United Nations.

The notion of the Roman Catholic church as a transnational actor is both intriguing and elusive. Its global empire, and thus its transnationality, ties it to many situations, no two of which are exactly alike. Its center in Rome coordinates and shapes the actions of the subsidiary field units by supplying them with general norms, symbolic leadership, and authoritative decisions. Each of the field units possesses, in turn, a certain autonomy vis-a-vis the center; the field units make demands on the center, may provide it with new ideas, and often generate key resources for the center, for example, loyalties, money, and skills.