The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

The relationship between security, economics and politics in the international system;

An IPE problematic is to question the relationship between politics and economics at the international level and about the link between the domestic policies and processes. Concepts such as hegemony and imperialism link politics and economics and require and require an examination of the precise nature of the relationship (Hirsch et al 1977 in strange 1984, p. 7). Mastanduno (1999, p. 185) explains the classical essay of Edward Mead Earle on the works of Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List, asserting that economics and security “is one of the most critical and absorbing problems of statesmanship’’, Hirschman on Machiviavelli’s classics the modern prince argues should contain “extensive new sections on the most efficient use of quotas, exchange controls, capital investment and other instrument of economic warfare’’. The suggestion of Hirschman and Earle for economic and security to be understood in an integrated fashion became prominent among scholars Jacob Viner 1948, Frederick Dunn 1949. Mastanduno explains according to these early scholars. Baldwin refers statecraft to the use of policy instruments to satisfy the core objectives of nation-states in the international system, involving the application and interplay of multiple instruments from military, economic, diplomatic, and informational to achieve the multiple objectives of states including national security, economic prosperity and political prestige and influence²¹. Successor generation as Klaus Knorr and Frank Trager1977, found that the relationship between economic and national security issues has been a ‘’neglected area of study’’ in IR and subsequently observed in IPE.

During the Cold War era, the US foreign policy integrated economic and security concerns, and relationships critical of launching the grand strategy of containing the expansion of the soviet power. The Clinton administration integrated security and economics in relations with other major powers who followed by reinforcing and complementing both concerns. The reintegration of IR security studies and IPE in issues and problems that lie at the intersection of economics and security and research has been revitalised on the link between international trade and peace, between security relations and international economic cooperation and between economics and security in the grand strategies of powerful states (Op.cit, p. 186-7)

Mastanduno in addressing the evolution of the relationship between economics and security, the case of the US argues around three factors to help us understand their variations in the extent of their integration. They include international structure of power hegemony with which he explains Multi-polar world politics create incentives for integration as great powers tend to be economically interdependent and rely heavily on allies for their security, Bipolar world politics encourage separation as they tend to be economically independent and defection from fixed to fluid alliance system is low. Where as, Uni-polarity motivates the dominant state to motivate economic and security. Secondly the specific features of the strategic environment could weaken or strengthen incentives to integrate economics and security and thirdly the position of the country (US) in international competition. The more the US dominate that competition, the easier foreign economic policies complement to national security policies, that is the more international competition faced, the greater the domestic pressure on policy makers to use foreign policy in pursuit of national economic interests. Mastanduno conception incorporates both material and non material factors of material capabilities emphasized by structural realists such as Cox, and ideas as sociology of knowledge such as Friedberg 1988, Walt 1987 (p.88). To avoid a betrayal of academic responsibility that seems particularly shameful, is to return to the antidote of open minded classics in the likes of Malthus, Lists, J. S. Mills, Marx, Weber, Lenin, Luxemburg, Schumpeter, all enrich present analysis with insights of serious speculations about man’s economic life. That is they connect the economy society and poverty very well. This leads us to make assumptions.