Economic relationships among States : a further study in International sociology

This book is an attempt to provide an analysis of the effect of economic factors on relations between states.

It has been taken for granted for many years at least since Marx's time and even before that economic forces play a major role in influencing political developments within states. But the influence of economic factors on political relations between states has been far less widely debated or examined. Textbooks on international relations mainly concentrate on the political and strategic factors influencing relations. Though most such books have a chapter on economic factors, there have been few if any (apart from those of economists) exclusively related to economic relations among states.

This study is designed to fill that gap: by considering the different ways in which economic relations have been conceived and conducted in different eras of history; by examining how far these have reflected the changing motives of particular interest groups, or those of states as a whole, in each period; and by looking at the different types of economic and political relationships which have resulted from these motives in each age.

The book is thus a companion to the author's earlier work, Types of International Society (1976), which studied the differing ways in which political relations among states have been conceived and conducted in different periods of history.