Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Functional Theory of Politics by David Mitrany

Review by: Robert O. Keohane
Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Jun., 1978), pp. 805-806
Published by: American Political Science Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1954263
Accessed: 13-03-2018 10:12 UTC

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 1978 International
the only one who ever actually reads this review
(I often wonder whether a review is just a
private letter to the author of a book), I
apologize now and ask him to note that I don't
take back my earlier comment that this is an
exceptionally valuable book. The fact is, in my
opinion, that Midgley entirely fails to prove his
thesis-if his book is more than a textbook.
That is, his final chapter on nuclear preparation
does not follow logically from all that went
before; not merely does it fail to follow, it is
merely an addendum. The final chapter itself
fails on two internal counts. First, it is not
sufficiently sensitive to the subtlety of the
academic and State Department game of talking
about nuclear deterrence theory. This "game"
played by the likes of Kahn, Kissinger, Schlesin-
ger, and Schelling consists of a combination of
objective theorizing and real-world nuclear-
deterrence communication to the "other side."
Midgley seems lost in sorting out the dif-
ferences that necessarily result. For example,
talk of a countervalue strategy seems grossly
immoral to Midgley, when perhaps it was
brought up by the particular writer for the
deterrence value conveyable to the other side in
discussing the bombing of cities (or even the
dialectical value in the internal argumentation
between academicians and Pentagonians).
Secondly, Midgley has not related his earlier
discussions of the "just war" and all its varia-
tions to any plausible scenarios in nuclear
deterrence theory; he seems quite unfamiliar
with these scenarios and war games.
However, we the readers do not have to buy
Midgley's concluding chapter nor hire him to
direct the next war. All we ought to do is read
his earlier historical-analytical chapters with a
view toward working out our own relevances to
scenarios that make sense to us. Hence, in this
ultimate sense, Midgley's book is more a text-
book than an essay. But as a text on the
difficult subject of the moral approach to
international relations examined in a vast
scholarship through the ages on "natural law,"
the text is worthy of study and repeated
reference.
ANTHONY D'AMATO
Northwestern Law School
The Functional Theory of Politics. By David
Mitrany. (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1975. Pp. xxv + 294. $18.95.)
David Mitrany's theory of functionalism has
exerted a remarkably persistent impact on
western thinking about international politics
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Politics 805
and organization since the publication of A
Working Peace System in 1943. In that essay
and in his other writings, Mitrany rejected both
classical conceptions of "power politics" and
federalist visions to articulate the notion of a
"working peace system" in which specific areas
of human activity, important to welfare, would
be organized internationally and managed by
experts. He argued for a "sharing of sovereign-
ty" rather than for its surrender: on particular
issues, governments would "pool their sovereign
authority insofar as the good performance of
the task demands it" (p. 129). This political
decision having been made, experts would take
charge, organizing activities and delivering ser-
vices for the common good. Eventually, as
Ernst B. Haas has summarized it, "an ever-
widening mesh of task-oriented welfare agencies
would come to pre-empt the work now done by
some governments, leading eventually to the
creation of a universal welfare orientation"
(Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State [Stan-
ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975],
p. 11). Formal sovereignty would not be
altered, at least not immediately, but the
content of sovereignty would be changed by
partial transfers of authority to functional
organs.
The volume under review contains essays
and excerpts from Mitrany's writings over a
period of more than 40 years. It includes his
essay on "The Progress of International Govern-
ment" (1932) and the introduction to the
Fourth Edition of A Working Peace System
(1946), in addition to a number of extracts
from shorter and lesser-known essays. Most
important to the reader familiar with Mitrany's
work, however, are two essays apparently pub-
lished for the first time in this volume. One,
"The Making of the Functional Theory: A
Memoir," is autobiographical; the other,
"Retrospect and Prospect," assesses the con-
tinued relevance of functionalism, in Mitrany's
view, and criticizes "scientific" analysts of
international relations and theorists of regional
integration for allegedly using "the tools of
science to cover arbitrary inventions."
Functionalism was a major contribution to
the understanding of world politics, since it was
the first major non-Marxist theory of the
twentieth century to look beyond the nation-
state to analyze coalitions other than classic
inter-state ones: for instance, of bureaucracies
with similar functionally defined tasks. It pro-
vided the intellectual basis for "neo-functional-
ist" theories of political integration, developed
by Haas and others, as well as the early
functionalist ideology of specialized agencies of
the United Nations. Indirectly, at least, it
 806 The American Political Science Review Vol. 72
contributed to contemporary analyses of trans-
national and transgovernmental relations.
Functionalism attempts to separate power
from welfare, and claims that functionally
defined activities can somehow be insulated
from political interference. This vision is the
source of functionalism's attractiveness: to
people concerned with "practical problems"
(whether of social security and welfare, as in
Mitrany's case, or environmental protection, as
for many people today), it appears to offer a
way out of a dreary round of political in-
fighting that contaminates technical activity
and obstructs progress toward common human
goals. Yet these assumptions have been severely
criticized, most notably by Haas, and events
over the last 30 years have not been kind to the
functionalist vision. As Cox and Jacobson have
shown, the functionalist ideology in the United
Nations system has given way to a stress on
"developmentalism," which "stresses the coor-
dination and coherence of economic policy at
the national level," and "centralization of
policy control and action at the international
level." (The Anatomy of Influence: Decision-
Making in International Organizations, ed. by
Robert W. Cox and Harold K. Jacobson [New
Haven and London: Yale University Press,
1973], p. 404.) Recent events in specialized
agencies such as UNESCO, and at the Law of
the Sea Conference held over the last several
years, have further dramatized the politiciza-
tion of functional agencies and the importance
of politics at every stage of international action,
where governments' interests are importantly
affected.
In light of this negative but clear record, it is
surprising and somewhat depressing to read
Mitrany's reaffirmation of the functionalist
faith. Rather than analyzing the political forces
that hinder realization of the functionalist
dream, Mitrany preaches against them and asks
plaintively: "Is there something incurably un-
hinged about the political mind in the mass" (p.
46)? Yet alongside this pessimism, one finds an
almost desperate inclination to believe that
functional progress marches on: "nuclear pow-
er, the exploitation of the sea-bed, satellites and
space travel, they all move on a new plane of
international relations and organization, shaped
not by any theory as to the political self-de-
termination of the parties, but by the tech-
nological self-determination of each of the
matters involved" (pp. 250-5 1). And it is
assumed-against mounting evidence-that func-
tional organization really does insulate inter-
national administration from politics: "tech-
nology and resources make equal participation
impossible, but functional organization and
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control ensure equality in protection and bene-
fits" (p. 250). Thus Mitrany concludes that
"the functional idea seems adaptable enough as
concept and practice to serve the several needs
of the present time" (p. 265).
In its pure form, and on a global scale,
functionalism is an idea whose time has passed.
Yet its insights into the potentially fragmented
nature of pluralistic states, and its suggestions
for political strategies to ameliorate the worst
pathologies of politicization, remain valid bases
for analysis and planning. Cox, Haas, Jacobson,
Lindberg and Nye, along with other scholars,
have made some progress toward redefining the
functionalist insights and adapting them to
contemporary political reality. It is to be
regretted that the father of functionalism,
David Mitrany, has chosen to defend his ideas in
their original form, rather than to display the
creative, adaptive learning that functionalism
reminds us is necessary if international organi-
zations are to adapt and thrive.
ROBERT 0. KEOHANE
Stanford University
Chinese Policy toward Indonesia, 1949-1967.
By David Mozingo. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1976. Pp. 303. $14.50.)
This interesting and well-written book is
broader in scope than its title suggests. It
actually deals with three topics: Chinese foreign
policy, Chinese policy toward Indonesia, and
Indonesian politics and foreign policy.
On the first of these, David Mozingo shows
the common tendency of American academic
writers on Chinese foreign policy to take
Peking's self-evaluation, as expressed in its
propaganda, largely at face value and to give it
the benefit of the doubt~most of the time. This
flies in the fact of the excellent advice given by
the late Chou En-lai to more than one foreign
visitor not to take Chinese propaganda too
seriously. The analysis accordingly revolves
around the central position assigned in Maoist
theory and propaganda to the "contradictions"
between "imperialism" on the one hand and
the "socialist" (i.e., communist) and Third
World countries on the other. Chinese foreign
policy is seen as largely reactive in practice to a
perceived threat first from the United States,
and more recently from the Soviet Union. This
is all right as far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough. It leads to Mozingo's highly question-
able main thesis, which is that in the case of
Indonesia, Peking for some reason deviated
from its usual approach and let itself be drawn