Business and the state in international relations / edited by Ronald W. Cox.

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword: "Serious Business" / Thomas Ferguson -- Introduction: Bringing Business Back In - The Business Conflict Theory of International Relations / Ronald W. Cox -- 1. Industrial Structure, Internationalism, and the Collapse of the Cold War Consensus: Business, the Media, and Vietnam / Erik A. Devereux -- 2. The Military-Industrial Complex, Sectoral Conflict, and the Study of U.S. Foreign Policy / David N. Gibbs -- 3. Business Mobilization and the New Right: Currents in U.S. Foreign Policy / Amy Ansell -- 4. Business Conflict and U.S. Trade Policy: The Case of the Machine Tool Industry / William N. Stant -- 5. Explaining Business Support for Regional Trade Agreements / Ronald W. Cox -- 6. The Business of Strategy: The Political Economy of U.S. Trade Policy Toward the USSR, 1945-1975 / Jerri-Lynn Scofield -- 7. Business Conflict and the Shadow State: The Case of West Africa / William Reno --

8. Winners and Losers in the Latin American Debt Crisis: The Political Implications / Jeffry A. Frieden -- 9. International Relations Theories: Approaches to Business and the State / Gregory P. Nowell -- 10. Business Conflict and Theories of the State / Daniel Skidmore-Hess -- Appendix: A Brief Reply / David N. Gibbs.

"Challenging the traditional notion that state officials act autonomously in formulating and implementing international policy, the contributors to this volume argue that the influence of organized business groups has been consistently underestimated in recent decades. Each uses a "business conflict" model of state-society relations as a new paradigm for understanding key policy conjunctures in U.S. trade and foreign policy.

Applying this model to such concerns and crises as the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the rise of the New Right, the Latin American debt crisis, and the political instability of West Africa, the contributors conclude that the political power of business groups in shaping policy is very real indeed.

Their provocative conclusions advance our understanding of the relationship between business groups and policymakers in capitalist societies."--BOOK JACKET.