Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet elméleti-politikai folyóirata - 1982 (9. évfolyam)

1982 / 4. szám - A tanulmányok orosz és angol nyelvű kivonata

ly in this period, but this only came to notice at the time of the price explosion and of supply shortages of the early seventies. Sensitivity to this dependence is much greater in countries which traditionally engage in power politics, and still nurse ambitions in that direction, such as Great Britain and France, than in smaller ones.

The damage done by dependence can best be lessened by geographical diversification. In the second half of the seventies foreign investments in extractive industries concentrated on regions where nationalisation did not threaten and the share of Third World countries declined. Though extractive multilaterals were forced back in the extractive industries of the Third World, primarily the ownership of deposits and mining, their role continues to be important in financing, technology, management, and sales. In world exports as well the weight of the Third World has declined.

Long-term inter-governmental contracts also help to ensure security of supply. This offers greater stability to both buyer and seller than the free market, as well as increasing the political importance of such trade.

User countries endeavour to diminish threats to supplies by international cooperation as well. The International Energy Agency, and energy-policy cooperation within the EEC are two such institutions. The work of both is however hindered by the divergence of national interests of participating countries. Real results have so far only been achieved in the creation of emergency stocks.

Béla Kádár:

Latin America within the context of international relations

After half-a-century’s of pretty general isolation the Latin American countries are beginning to play a growing role in international relations.

Economically this is linked to security of supply aspects, to a wealth of natural resources (oil, minerals &c.) and to the Brazilian and Argentine agrarian potential. The international business community feels that the exploitation of natural resources is strategically and politically more secure in South America than e.g. in the Middle East. A growth in relative economic importance also ensures a more favourable basis for the non-economic international role of Latin American countries.

A more active role in international affairs is on the one hand the consequence of greater participation in the international division of labour, on the other the fruit of a greater differentiation in international power relations. In the sixties and seventies the majority of Latin American countries seized the opportunity

of strengthening cooperation with the countries of Western Europe, Japan, the socialist and the developing countries, as well as greater regional cooperation, as an instrument for lessening dependence on the U.S., the dominant power in the area.

Early in the eighties, however, conditions for regional cooperation toughened, nor could Western Europe, wrestling with problems of adjustment to new stages of economic development, offer a real alternative to the U.S. As a countervailing power to growing American influence in the eighties, and in order to improve bargaining strength vis ä vis the U.S. most of the Latin American countries will have to place much greater weight on the proper choice of foreign policy and trading partners.

Balázs Barbi:

ASEAN in the second half of the seventies

The signing of the Bangkok declaration in 1967 established an alliance between five states which significantly differed from both political and economic aspects. Existing contradictions meant that in the initial stages of the alliance member states were able to realise just about none of the aims listed in the declaration, or even that political cooperation which had not been mentioned but which was implicit in the declaration of aims. The lack of success between 1967 and 1975 was of course also due to the effect of outside, international factors.

The victories of the revolutionary forces in Indochina however led to a feeling of being threatened, totally unjustified in fact, which, in countries sailing under the capitalist flag contributed to their ability to give a wide birth to, and overcome, the obstacles to their cooperation. Since then ASEAN countries have closely collaborated in their reaction to foreign trade and foreign policy problems. The particular interests of member states still help to widen or narrow the limits of cooperation but basic ideological and social (capitalist) interests suffice to upstage less-important ASEAN problems (without however necessarily solving them) concentrating attention on increasing the political and economic power of the region by showing greater unity.

In the first place ASEAN endeavoured to work out a joint Indochina policy. Though the five base their policy on a fundamentally., mistaken and anti-Indochina analysis and interpretation, which is outright aggressive in the case of Singapore and Thailand, their efforts are successful inasmuch as they have been able to follow a united line—at least it looks like that from the outside—-and that in spite of manifest differences on basic issues.

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