Fig. 1. Simplified model of governmental position-formation process. consultative group of Western industrial nations, and the Group of 77, a similar body of Third World nations. It is at this stage in the decision-making process that private transnational actors also have the greatest potential to affect reaction to global technology and resource issues. In 1979, for example, a well-organized bloc of 12 Latin American delegations to the World Administrative Radio Conference came into existence through the efforts of the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ, the World Association for Christian Communications, the Public Interest Satellite Association, and the International Institute for Communications. These four nongovernmental organizations supplied the Latin American delegates with documentary material, provided them with an analysis of the developed countries’ positions, and organized a preconference symposium at which delegates achieved consensus on a united policy stance and a common strategy in opposition to proposals of the OECD delegations (9). In the final analysis, however, the existence of “blocs” of international response to technological and resource questions appear to be far less influential than the preferences of individual governments. Evan Luard writes, with reference to the expression of political demands in international technical agencies, “In each organization, for the most part, each national delegation goes its own way, largely independently, supporting those demands which it thinks its government approves, and opposing those it rejects, with little concept of a deliberate, co-operative political strategy. Political organization, insofar as it exists at all (in the so-called group system), has only the most marginal influence on the voting of each delegation: when delegations vote together it is primarily because they have common interests or views, and would thus anyway do, rather than because of group pressures. . .” (10) In this context, one is reminded of incidents at UNCLOS III, at OPEC meetings, and at the Havana Conference of 1979 when “Third World unity” dissolved under the pressure of conflicting demands by individual governments. These observations suggest that a truly international reaction to SPS, per se, will not exist in the near future. Instead, the principal format of “international” reaction will be the sum of the reactions of individual foreign governments, as influenced by domestic and transnational interest groups. In most cases, the reactions of individual governments will coincide with the reactions of other governments in the same
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