School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemForeign policies of the Afro-Asian states: an analysis of their voting behaviour in the General Assembly and of their economic and military relationships with one another and with the great powers( 1969)This thesis is an examination of relationships among the Afro-Asian states and between these states and the great powers. Three kinds of relationship are analysed: identity or voting in the United Nations General Assembly; contacts arising from trade, economic aid and institutions and conferences for economic co-operation; and military commitments, whether they are established through treaties, the cession of bases or the receipt of military aid by the Afro-Asian countries. The purpose of these analyses is fivefold: 1. to assess the extent of co-operation and conflict among the Afro-Asian states; to determine the existence of groups among them, the members of which act frequently together and pursue similar policies, and to identify the issues on which individual nations and the groupings agree and disagree. 2. to determine, for each Afro-Asian country, the superpower with which it most frequently votes; to ascertain its attitude to the China question; and to show with which of the powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, or the former colonial power, it has close economic and military links. 3. to examine the extent to which members of the groupings identified among the Afro-Asian states have similar great power affiliations, in order to establish the power orientation of each grouping. 4. to assess the degree to which each Afro-Asian state is dependent upon its patron among the great powers and the extent to which the Afro-Asian nations are collectively dependent upon the great powers. 5. to gauge the influence of the great powers among the Afro-Asian states and to assess the extent to which Afro-Asian agreement with or accession to their policies has been of advantage to the great powers. The methods of analysis adopted, both qualitative and quantitative, take account of those occasions on which an individual nation or group of nations acts at variance from its normal behaviour, and they also permit changes in orientations over periods of time to be observed. By taking as the starting-point for analysis the policies and behaviour on particular issues of each Afro-Asian country and then correlating the relationships between them, it has been possible to qualify some preconceived notions about the cohesion, influence and power bloc orientations of the Afro-Asian nations. The analysis is by no means exhaustive. But it is hoped that, by indicating some areas in which all or most of the Afro-Asian states do co operate and the power bloc orientations and local rivalries which divide them, some contribution has been made to the study of their foreign policies.