UNIT -22 ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Structure
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Evolution of Modem Science and Technology
22.2.1 Trends in Science and Technology

22.3 Impact on International Politics

'

22.3.1 The Rise of Territorial State and the International Systern

22.3.2 Science and Technology and international Dependencies
22.3.3 Impact of Science and Technology on Military Affairs

22.4 Technological-Advances and State Sovereignty

22.5 Summary
22.6 Exercises

22.1 INTRODUCTION
The relationship between technolo& and international relations has been continuous and intimate.
From the time of man's most primitive polities, the foreign policy problems and opportunities of
states have been influenced by the nature of their technology for transport, communications,
warfare and economic production. And the relationship between technology and international
relations is not a new area of study. Political geographers have sought to explore how technology
has enabled man to adapt to and alter the conditions imposed by his geographic environment.
Other scholars engaged in the effort to develop quantitative means for measuring and comparing
national power have made use of technological indices such as steel or energy production. S ~ m e
studies on nationalism and international organisations have focused on the part played by the
developments in transportation and communication in the formation of modem states and regional
or international arrangements. With the advent of nuclear weapons, scholars have focussed
attention on the interrelationships among weapons technololgy, military strategy and foreign
policy.

The accelerated pace of technological advances in recent years, however, bestow the subject
with added significance. With science becoming a major propeller of technological innovation,
we will have to examine the role of both science and technology, though technology is the more
prevalent of the two in their interactions with international affairs.

A familiar problem that one encounters in analysing the role of science and technology in
international relations is that of making general observations about the effects of a single
variable. Taken in their aggregate, the technological developments in the past four or five
hundredIyears have had extensive and cumulative impact on international relations. But as the
,technological capabilitieshave expanded, so have the choices available for individuals, organisations,
industries and governments. Considered individually, technological innovations are increasingly
less determinative in their effect.
22.2 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
The scientific age can be said to have begun in the 16th and 17th Century Europe. The
environment for the growth of modem science and technology was provided by the Renaissance
which itself was partly due to the gradual development of technology. Though the main feature
of the Renaissance was the revival of the ancient art and humanities, it marked a point of
transition in which deference to the ancient began to be replaced by a consciously dynamic,
progressive attitude. Even while the Renaissance men looked back to classical models, they
looked for ways of improving upon them. Technological developments such as the printing press,
the telescope, the microscope, accurate clocks, and countless other tools of science and scientific
research became a major intellectual activity. In the early 17th Century, Francis Bacon recognised
the significance of disciplined method for development, testing, and verification of theory and
advocated experimental science as a means of enlarging man's dominion over nature. It was
the adoption of this scientific method that distinguished science in Europe from Islamic science
or China where science and technology accomplishments were well in advance of those in
Europe at that time. The vitality of this approach to the study of natural phenomena has been
amply demonstrated by the achievements of the scientific community in the West over succeeding
centuries.

In the early 17th Century itself, the practical role of science was recognised. Bacon urged
scientists to study the methods of craftsmen and craftsmen to learn more science. Many
societies and academies came up to promote these ideas. But no real convergence between
science and technology emerged in the next two hundred years. Carpenters and mechanics-
practical men of long standing-built iron bridges, steam engines, and textile machinery without
much reference to scientific principles, while scientists-still amateurs-pursued their investigations
in a haphazard manner. Nevertheless, the beliefs in change and control over nature that were
promoted by the rise of science guided many technological innovators in the early stages of the
Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution started in the 18th Century (most notably with the invention of a steam
engine, a mechanised thread spinner and the cotton gin in the United States). Britain was tied
to its emerging leadership role in world economy. British developments were quickly copied and
other inventions added in Western Europe and the United States. The industrial revolution thus
was a Westem-wide phenomenon, despite some variations within the West. New sources of
inanimate energy-the internal combustion engine and electrical energy-were developed and
applied in transportation, communications, and industry. The abundance and transportability of
inanimate energy resulted in an enormous increase in productivity and made possible a whole
complex of technological developments.

With the advent of the satellites and digital technologies, the speed and capacity of communication
has outpaced our expectation. Satellites have transformed communications both within and
between nations. The cost of the communication services is no-longer related to distance and
terrain. Digital technologies, on the other hand have virtually eliminated the technological distinction
between voice, text, data, and video services. The convergence of these communication and
digital technologies resulting in the rapid spread of electronic networks is appropriately designated
"information revolution", to draw the parallel with the industrial revolution in its expected
significance for human affairs.

By the turn of the 19th Century, the United States began to overtake Europe in technological
innovations, leading the world in converting from coal to oil and from horse-drawn transportation
to motor vehicles. New technical innovations, from electrici1.y to airplanes, also helped push the
US economy into a dominant world position. The springs of innovation did not dry in Europe:
many important inventions of the 20th Century originated in Europe. But, like Britain during the
Industrial Revolution, it was the United States which came to possess the capacity to assimilate
innovations and to take full advantage from them. Other nations have been deficient in one or
other of the vital social resources without which an invention cannot be converted into a
commercial success.

Social involvement in technological advances

Social conditions are thus of the utmost importance in the development of new techniques.. .To
simplify the relationship as much as possible, there are three points at which there must be
some social involvement in technological innovation: soc:ial need, social resources, and a
sympathetic social ethos. In default of any of these factors it is unlikely that a technological
innovation will be widely adopted or be successful.

The sense of social need must be strongly felt, or people will not be prepared to devote
resources to a technological innovation. The thing needed. may be a more efficient cutting
tool, a more powerful lifting device, a labor-saving machine, or a means of utilising new fuels
or a new source of energy. Or, because military needs have always provided a stimulus to
technological innovation, it may take the form of a requirement for better weapons. Whatever
the source of social need, it is essential that enough people be conscious of it to provide a
market for an artifact or commodity that can meet the need.

Social resources are similarly an indispensable prerequisite to a successful innovation. Many

inventions have foundered because the social resources vital for their realisation-the capital,
materials, and skilled personnel-were not available. The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci are
full of ideas for helicopters, submarines, and airplanes, but few of these reached even the
model stage because resources of one sort or another were lacking. The resource of capital
involves the existence of surplus productivity &d an organisation capable of directing the
available wealth into channels in which the inventor can use it. The resource of materials
involves the availability of appropriate metallurgical, ceramic, plastic, or textile substances that
can perform whatever functions a new invention requires of them. The resource of skilled
personnel implies the presence of technicians capable of constructing new artifacts and
devising novel processes. A society, in short, has to be well pdmed with suitable resources
in order to sustain technological innovation.

A sympathetic social ethos implies an environment receptive to new ideas, one in which the
dominant social groups are prepared to consider innovatioil seriously. Such receptivity may
be limited to specific fields of innovation-for example, improvements in weapons or in
navigational techniques-or it may take the form of a more generalised attitude of inquiry, as
was the case among the industrial middle classes in Britain during the 18th Century, who
were willing to cultivate new ideas and inventors, the breeders of such ideas. Whatever the
psychological basis of inventive genius, there can be no doubt that the existence of socially
important groups willing to encourage inventors and to use their ideas has been a crucial
factor in the history of technology.
-

-Encyclopedia Britannica 2003

In the post-Second World War period, the Soviet Union, which had adopted a socialist model
of industrial development, quickly mastered nuclear technology and heralded the dawn of the
space age by launching the Sputnik satellite into outer space as a part of the international
scientific study in the International Geophysical Year of 1957. These achievement; demonstrated
its scientific and technological prowess, but as it never sought to commercialise these capabilities,
it lagged behind as a technological innovator. The United States, by actively supporting the
commercialisation of the technological breakthroughs that were emerging out of its iassive
research and development activities, dominated the world as a technological innovator. Beginning
in the late' 1970s, new centres of technological innovation which have emerged in Europe and
Asia are chal!enging the US dominance in the international economy. These nations have
developed sophisticated technical infrastructure and acquired the capacity to directly use the
results of basic research, whether developed domestically or elsewhere. Some of them have
demonstrated the ability to rapidly commercialise new and emerging technology, and prosper in
an environment of shorter product, process and service life cycles.

22.2.1 Trends in the Evolution of Science andTechnology .

We have hinted earlier that scientific research has become a necessary preliminary to
technological innovations. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, technologioal advances have
increasingly come to depend on science. The emergence of the industrial research laboratories
illustrates this very well. Industrial research laboratories first appeared in the late 19th Century.
They were set up as it became necessary for commercial exploitation of technology to understand
how and why things worked as they did, and in part as the subject matter of technology-
electricity, magnetism and chemical processes-required specialised knowledge and experiment
which was not accessible even to the experienced artisan. In the West, this form of structured
research and experimentation in the interest of innovation gradually evolved into a se1f;sustaining
system. Further technological advances in the coming years may be almost completely based
upon advances in science.

Secondly, scientific knowledge and technological innovation are increasing at an exponential

rate, though mainly' in the industrial world. These scientifically literate and technically advanced
countries are in a better position to generate and absorb new information and technologies. As
we saw, structured research and experimentation in the interest of innovation has become a
self-sustaining system in these countries.

Thirdly, both the costs of acquiring new scientific knowledge and costs of product innovation
are increasing. As science expanded its horizons,' it began to rely on sophisticated tools of
research such as the radio telescope, the electronic microscope, accelerators, sounding rockets
and reusable space vehicles, satellites and high-speed computer equipment. Not only high-
energy physicists, astronomers, and oceanographers who were initially associated with 'big
science' but also the chemists, biologists and the molecular physicists have come fo rely on
increasingly complex and costly instrumentation. One result of this is that it has become harder
to distinguish between science and engineering at least with respect to the tools they use.
Another is that the pursuit of scientific research and technological developments has gone
beyond capabilities of individual scientists working in isolation: They have to work as members
of a team, often in tandem with engineers. Thus, the most overwhelming aspect of modem
science is its magnitude in terms of money, equipment, number of workers and scope of activity.

Finally, scientific research has become increasingly subject to government control and direction.
States'were long interested in technologleal innovation for application to armaments and the
waging of war. But they were predominantly interested as potential customers of independent
developments. Their support to science and technology, therefore, had remained erratic and
sometimes capricious. This began to change in the 20th Century. Governments made primitive
effort to put scientists to work on military problems during the the First World War. Funded by
the government, German chemists played a key role in the development of poison gas. This was
a harbinger for the physicists to play in the development of the atom bomb. In the inter-war
period, when the developments in science were found to have military implications, govemmenk~
in the industriail world began to fund science and technology programmes. But it was during t ,
Second World War that the industrial nations brought the resources of their scientists a: >
technologists to bear on the problems of war. Developments in nuclear energy, radar, proximity
fuses, rockets, bombers, bombs, comflmunications, intelligence, materials, organisation, operations
research, and countless other fields were all supported largely with government funding. The
mobilisation of science during the Second World War not only helped the Allies win the war,
but also set a pattern that profoundly influenced the post-war world. The partnership between
government and the scientific community that had'provecl so successful during the war got
consolidated with the onset of the Cold War conflict bctween the United States and the Soviet
Union. In this conflict, both the powers harnessed science and technology not only for the
political-military strategy of maintaining a balance of terror, but also for the advancement of
diverse foreign policy goals in such diverse fields as the exploration of space and oceans, birth
and disease control, weather modification, and global comn~unications.

The net result of these trends has been a science and technology system that is dedicated to
stimulating advances in technology so as to expand capabilities and performance. The incentives
and the structure that h a k e the system work in this way are now institutionalised in the
scientific and technological enterprises themselves and in their economic and social setting. The
result is a stream of technological outcomes that contribute to a steady, sometimes spectacular
growth in the capability to carry out new tasks and to perform existing tasks at a faster rate,
at a greater (or much smaller) distance, with greater precision, with higher quality, with greater
efficiency, with fewer people, at lower costs, with more power, and with other enhanced
characteristics.

22.3 IMPACT ON INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

None of the key elements in the international political process has been untouched by scientific
capabilities and technological developments. The international system based on the sovereign
states system, the states themselves, the purposes and expec.tations moving state policy and the
means available to states for achieving their purposes have all been altered by developments
induced by science and technology.

22.3.1 'The Rise oafTerritorialState and the International System

The introduction of new technologies played an important role in the rise of the territorial staies
in Europe and the gradual evolution of an international system. The gunpowder which wds
known to the ancient Chinese came to Europe via the.Islarnic world in the 15th Century. The
Europeans put it to purposeful military use, by replacing the cavalry with gun wielding infantry.
This ,nade their neighbours insecure and compelled them to acquire similar weapons. The
growth in the size and complexity of the army gradually pushed up the costs of equipping an
army. Even the wealthiest aristocrats could no longer afford to raise large armies of professional
soldiers. The rising costs of warfare in the early 16th Century Europe had immediate political
consequences. They made political power increasingly deipendent upon national wealth, and
pressured kings and princes to invent new ways of raising revenues. This, in turn, stimulated
the growth of modem state and state system.
Taxation was one way to increase the revenues 'of the state. The other option was long-distance
trade. Advances in the transportation technologies in the form of new ship models and improved
means of navigation tools made this option possible. Expeditions of discovery and adventure
connected Europe with other regions of the world. With overseas trade emerging as a new
source of revenue, the European monarchs could build large armies and equip them with more
guns.

With the Industrial Revolution, Western nations became anxious about the stability of.their own
changing economies. Their search for secure markets and supplies ultimately resulted in the
plunder and colonisation of the other regions of the world. By the end of the 19th Century,
virtually all the regions of the globe had come under the direct or indirect rule of the European
nations. Never before has so much territory been acquh* in so little time. The establishment
of European hegemony over the rest of the world owed very much to the fact that the industrial
power, emerging out of advances in technology, got translated into military power and to an
extent into cultural superiority. The gains brought by industrial revolution, improved organisation,
better health care, and expanded literacy, fed the growing belief that the West was superior to
the rest of the world, with the right and duty to rule over the technically inferior polities. An
English poet, Rudyard Kipling, described a widely held sentiment in arguing that the West had
such superior moral and political values that it was the responsibility-the 'white man's burden'-
to reshape the rest of the world. Thus, trade and colonialism b a d e possible by advances in
transportation, communication and improved ordnance resulted in the emergence of world economy
that was interdependent.

New technology also affected the structure of the state system. With technological innovations
coming to have a bearing on economic and military strength of a nation, the relative position of
statcs got affected. Britain, taking advantage of early industrialisation emerged as a world
power. On the European continent, Germany outpaced France in technological capabilities and
displaced France as the dominant power. These changes in the relative power and location of
states in the international system in turn had great consequences for the stability of the system.
The rise of German and Japanese power introduced instability in the system resulting in the two
world wars. The Second World War had a debilitating effect on the European nations resulting
in the rise of the United States (which had already become a centre for technological innovations)
as a super power. The war also weakened the liqks between the European nations and contributed
to the collapse of the European empire within a short span of two decades.

Technological' advances have also resulted in the emergence of new actors-multinational

corporations (MNCs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the international scene.
Prcviously isolated from one another, NGOs are becoming global actors, with the increase in
their power and capacity to communicate both within and across national borders. Playing a
prominent role at the United Nations and other world forums, NGOs and citizen advocacy
groups are taking up issues likc environment protection, disarmament, human rights, consumer
rights, etc, issues and problems whose scale confounds local and national solutions. There is
some evidence to suggest the emergence of a fledging global civil society which is part of our
collective lives that is neither market nor government but is so often inundated by them.

22.3.2 Science andTechnology and International Dependencies

Imperialism concentrated the accumulation of wealth in Europe and northern America (core)
and drained the economic surplus from the other regions of the world (periphery). Once
colonialism was overthrown, it was expected that the accumulation of wealth would take off
in these countries and that the econon~icand technological gap between the developed core and
the developing periphery would close. This did not happen. Insteati, the economic and technological
gap kept on widening. One reason for this was that as colonies, the economies of these
countries have been developed in a narrow way to serve the needs of the European home
country. Liberation from colonial rule did not change underlying economic realities. The main
products were usually those developed under colonialism and the main trading partners of the 7
countries were usually their former colonial masters. As before, most developing states continv n
to occupy the same peripheral positions in the world system after independence.

The developing countries, in their multilateral negotiations with the industrial countries on the
economic development issues, popularly known as the 'North-South dialogue', have sought to
correct this dependency relationship through the restructuring of the international economic
order. The main components of the restructuring efforts were: better terms of trade with the
industrial nations by way of greater investments and technology transfers, more local control
over productive assets such as labour, capital and technology and greater participation in world
economic institutions. In the 1570s, they succeeded in passing a UN resolution on New
International Economic Order (NIEO) and sought to establish a New Information Order as well,
But in the 1980s, the debt crisis, the ascendancy of the market forces in the industrial world
(and in some parts of the developing world), the manifest failure of the non-market forces, and
splits within the coalition of developing nations have weakened the NIEO policies. The emphasis
in the North-South negotiations has shifted from long-term restructuring goals to coping with
short-tern~coping strategies.

Since the 1980s, there has been an intensified integration of national economies and societies,
moving nations to new levels of interdependence. Advances in transportation arrd communications
technologies, in particular, have stimulated the growth of multinatilonal corporations, of international
trade and of integrated information networks making possible instant communications and
transactions throughout the world. Have these developments altered the substan~eand character
of the dependency relationships between the industrial and developing nations? Three changes
of broad, generic impact stand out.

The first change in the character of dependency relations is a result simply of the greater
significance of technology transfers in the relations between industrial and developing nations.
Some countries in Southeast Asia, the so-called Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) have
been successful in strengthening their technological capability .and some among them (notably,
Taiwan and Korea) have even become substantial producers and exporters of high technology.
Other countries, like India and Brazil, have tried with extensive import substitution policies for
technology coupled with protectionist measures to shield infant industry from external competition.
But, barring a few selected achievements such as those of India in space technology and
information technology services, their products have not been competitive in performance with
foreign technologies.

While a couple of NICs have been able to turn their technological dependence into the more
nearly equal mutual dependency, most developing countries remain dependent on the importation
of technology from the industrial nations-some simply for the hardware which they cannot
produce at home and others for the continuing flow of knowledge needed to infuse their
indigenous scientific and technological efforts. By all indications, this dependence is most likely
to continue with little overall change. Developing countries can do little to reduce the dependency,
at least in the short run. The technology-transfer will continue to remain a central issue in the
relations between. the industrialised and the developing countries.

Thc sccond generic change in the nature of dependency relations SLL !$ f ~ o m!hc effects of
technology on comparative advantage in trade and industrial relationship. Until recently, the
comparative advantages that developing countries had were their low cost labour and raw
materials. It was because of these advantages many firms of the industrialised countries had
set up manufacturing units in the developing countries. Technological advances are eroding
these comparative advantages. Technological developments in automation and management
procedures are reducing the wage content in the cost of many manufacturing products. Natural
resources are also becoming a smaller portion of the value added in manufacturing as technological
change allows substitution or design that avoids costly inputs, and as economies move to
knowledge-based high-technology industry with relativelv much lower raw material content in
final product. In a sense, the economies of the developing countries are hostage to technological
developments over %%ich they have no control or even inputs.

The development of global technological systems for information and otner services is the
source of another generic change in the character of dependency relations between the industrial
and the developing nations. The economic importance of some of the systems that are
characteristic of the advent of the space age in the late 1950s-space-based and ground-based
weather, communication, remote-sensing, and navigational systems-is increasing steadily. Though
the capability to design and develop satellites is limited to a few countries, and the capability
to launch them into space to even fewer numbers, several countries have built massive
infrastructure necessary to tie to these systems and to exploit the new services provided by
satellites of various types. Over time, reliance on these systems has grown and the systems
and their many offshoots have become integral parts of the economy in several countries. Equal
access and assurance of continued availability of these systems are therefore important.

This system dependence makes the management and operating arrangements an important issue
for all participating countries. When a system is owned and operated by an international entity
such as the Intelsat (the organisation responsible for operating the primary international satellite
communication system) participating countries are less concerned about the access and continuity
of the system. When such a system is owned and operated by an individual country (like the
United States, Soviet Union or France which had acquired those capabilities), there are heightened
concerns over the access and continuity of the system for access could be denied for political
reasons and continuity may not be assured as the system is controlled by domestic decision
processes. It was these concerns over dependence on foreign s e r v i ~ sthat prompted India in
the 1960s to go for a self-reliant space programme with the capability to design, develop, and
launch satellites for varied applications.

Though access to space systems has not been denied to anyone in the last four decades of
space age, continuity of remote sensing services by the Landsat satellite that was owned by the
United States were disrupted in the 1980s because of domestic pressures. The French SPOT
satellite'and later the Indian IRS satellites provided remote sensing data to users across the
globe.

The dependericies on global technological systems are important additions to existing forms of
dependency. Couniries capable of providing these systems are growing, with India and China
ready to enter the commercial market hitherto dominated by the United States, Russia and
Francs. Developing countries see this development as a small consolation as they continue to
be dependent on a very small number of systems and hence nations, if they wish to take
advantage of the technologies. Many developing countries, therefore, prefer to see global
technologies managed by international organisations. Their ideas struck sympathetic chords in
the 1986 Soviet Union proposal of a World Space Organisation to manage all global activities.
But, by and large industrial nations that first developed and deployed the systems prefer to reap
the benefits and to continue their control, rather than submit to international management.

22.3.3 Impact of Science and Technology on Military Affairs

Military power has been traditionally seen as the primary ordering principle in the international
political system. Elements that affect military power are thus important to international affairs;
science and technology have long been of particular significance, as a technological advantage
in weapons or in support capability often lead to decisive superiority on the battlefield. As we
saw, the expansion of the European empire in other regions of the world that began with the
sail boat was completed with steam-ship and i m p r c ~ e dordnance.
- _I- __nL

In the 20th Century, the growth of tFr institutional system for stimulating technological innovation
has stimulated the tendency to stretch all parametres in weapons, their size, speed, power or
capacity. This tendency has been fuelled further by the predisposition in security matters to use
'worst case' scenarios as a way of defining needed capabilities. The impact of this development
has been two fold. At one level it led to the deployment of massive weapon systems in the Cold
War confrontation between the East and the West, of a scale ;md character that far exceeded
what could have been predicted at the outset of the arms race, or what is needed for these
nations actual security. At another level, it has accelerated the pace of technological change in
conventional weapons. Today, because of the arms transfer policies adopted by the industrialised
nations tg fulfil their strategic, political and military objective as well as because of the growing
technological capabilities of the developing nations the military ciapacity generally available even
to small states is expanding in attributes such as destructiveness, speed of response, mobility,
reach, accuracy and cost-effectiveness.

The developnlent of nuclear weapons provides a striking demonstration of the effort of changes
in military technology on international relations. Like the railroad and the steamship before them,
nuclear weapons have revolutionised the character of war and the power relations among
states. These new weapons have widened the disparity between large (the two super powers
which have amassed a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems) and
medium powers (the other nuclear powers) leading to a bipolar world. They have also increased
the influence of scientific and military elite in state structures, and elevated new goals, such as
deterrence and arms control, into the higher ranks of state purposes. Most important, because
of the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, war involving or threatening to involve nuclear
weapons on both sides, is no longer seen as a rational policy option. Nuclear weapon states have
also felt constrained in their use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states-even to the po~nt
of accepting defeat, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons, in short, have come to
serve the traditional purpose of ensuring the survival of the st,ate only if they were never fired
in anger.

An important technology related change in the security sector is its impact on geography as a
geopolitical factor. Long range missiles, aircraft and submarines have reduced the significance
of physical location as a determinant of the vulnerability of a. nation.

Today, the effectiveness and relative strength of a nation's military forces are now a function
of technology-of various aspects of the development, quality, and deployment of technology-
more than at any time in the past. But the steady march of technology~thereduced time for
delivery of weapous of mass destruction; the vulnerability of key command and&htrol.facilities
and individuals; the increased flood of information that must be processed, selected and in'terpreted
in severely limited time and the sheer complexity of the military systems and their
ii~terconnectednessare all diminishing the ability to maintain human control over central decisions
 on the use of military force. This effect is partic;larly evident in control systems in which the
applicat~onsof technology have made human intervention difficult, sometimes uncertain, and
necessarily dependent on pre-programmed response.

22.4' TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND STATE

SOVEREIGNTY
One of the central organising elements of international affairs, cited often as the element on
which science and technology has had the largest impact, is the principle of sovereignty. Some
. recent developments that have been stimulated or made possible by technological changes such
as, the increase of economic interdependence, or the rise of multinational corporations, or the
growing role of international institutions or the intensified world-wide communications are seen
as the primary cause or causes of the erosion of national sovereignty.

It is true that there has emerged a large and expanding sector of national and international
activities not under the direct control of the govenunents, nor accountable to them. This impinges
on the authority of governments and constrains to varying degree their freedom of action or
ability to order events. While this is indeed a significant aspect of the evolution in international
affairs, has it really affected state sovereignty!

From the point of the realist school which equates sovereignty with the idea of statehood, the
rise of alternative sources of power and influence outside the direct control of the government
has not affected sovereignty. States remain sovereign as before. In this realist argument, the
world remains an anarchic system of independent sovereign states which cooperate for the
purpose of serving national interest-or are forced to cooperate by more powerful states-and
allow the growth of interdependence for the same reasons. None of these alternative sources
of power, whether they are multinational corporations or international organisations (whether
governmental or non-governmental), have an independent status in the international system.
They are dependent on the fundamental power of the nation $ate which still has the power to
control and regulate these qrganisations. Whatever constraints exist on the authority and autonomy
of the states are those that have been accepted by states, either voluntarily or under pressure
of circun~stances.The constraints imposed by interdependence on nation states do not challenge
the principle of statehood.

Is the change in the autonomy and authority of the state large enough to be considered a system
change? James Rosenau argues that a fundamental transformation in world politics has occurred,
with the dynamics of technology serving as a major driving force. He argues that breakpoints
01. discontinuities occur when the primary parametres of the international system are transformed
and such a transformation has indeed taken place due to the effects of technological change.
Pa .Ilel to and overlapping the state-centric world, a multi-centric world has emerged in which
nc. state actors such as the international organisation, multinational corporations and even
inurviduals are active. The emergence of these new actors on the international stage has
rc ,ced the predominance of states in the actual conduct of international relationships.

Tl~ereis indeed a relative decrease of state power over the details of international activities.
t2.d this has not affected the substance of the international relations in any significant way. In
fact, the traditional concepts have adapted to rapid changes in the international relations.
Technology related changes may be modifying the dimensions of national autonomy but are not
assumptions of autonomy in national p~licies,changing the substance of dependency relationships
but not the fact of dependency, altering the nature of weapons but not denying a role for power
in international affairs, modifying the distribution of power and capabilities but not the significance
of those attributes of states, creating new patterns of economic interaction among societies but
leaving the management of the econonlic system largely in national hands, altering the relationships
between government and nongovernmental actors but not the basic authority of governments,
raising wholly new issues and altering traditional issues that must be dealt with internationally-
but thereby making foreign policy more complex, not fundamentally different.

22.5 SUMMARY
In examining the evolution of the modem science and technology enterprise we have seen a
few trends and patterns. First, since the late 19th Century, science has become a major impulse
for technological development. A higher proportion of technology is science based than in earlier
years. Secondly, there has been an exponential growth of scientific knowledge and technological
innovations in the 20th Century, at least in the developed countries. Thirdly, both the cost of
acquiring new scientific knowledge and the costs of product innovation appear to be increasing.
Finally, we noted that scientific research and technological change has become increasingly
subject to government control and direction.

We also examined the cumulative effect of scientific research and technological development
in the [our hundred years or so. These developments had a critical role in the evolution of
modern states and the international system. They have accelerated the pace of integration of
economies and societies, but have not substantially altered the dependency relationship between
the industrial and the developing countries. In the security sector, advances in science and
technology resulting in long range weapon system have diminished geography as a geopolitical
factor. And nuclear weapons have led to a change in the expectations about the suitability of
general war as a foreign policy option, at least when it involves nuclear weapon states.

22.6 EXERCISES
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1. Describe the main trends in the development of technology in the 20th Century.

2. What has been the role of technology in the evolution of the international system?

3. In your assessment, what are the essential social resources 'necessary for technological
innovations?

4. Examine the impact of the advances in science and techn'ology on the developing countries.

5. Critically examine the impact of technological advances on state sovereignty.