The widely different perspectives from which various writers approach issues of international economic interdependence can make this an extremely confusing area for the nonspecialist. In hopes of reducing this problem we attempt to briefly characterize and offer comments on the strengths and weaknesses of a number of the major schools of thought about the roles of power, politics, and economic prosperity in the political economy of international economic relations. In the last section we outline how public choice analysis may be used as a synthetic framework that incorporates major insights from each of these main schools of thought.
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References
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and Thomas D. Willett, “Some Aspects of the Public Choice Approach to International Economic Relations,” (Claremont Working Papers, Claremont Graduate School, 1980).
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2. For detailed critiques, see the discussion in Ryan C. Amacher, Gottfried Haberler, and Thomas D. Willett, eds., Challenges to the Liberal International Economic Order (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1979).
3.
and Robert D. Tollison and Thomas D. Willett, “An Economic Theory of Mutually Advantageous Issue Linkages in International Negotiations,”International Organization, 33: 425-450 (Autumn 1979); and Willett, “Some Aspects of the Public-Choice Approach.”
