Introduction

Eulau's remarks illustrate the common view of context as a cause or an effect. In this chapter I suggest another alternative: context can influence relationships. The causal arrow from the context is not directed to or from another variable but at another arrow. Using this model of context makes international relations look much more like comparative politics, which has always been concerned with how the same variables can have different effects in different societies. In comparative politics national boundaries separate systems, thus there is a natural concern for the variability of relationships in different societies. But there is no such obvious dividing line between systems at the global level. In general there are many potential useful criteria for defining different contexts; ultimately each individual is unique (and even she may have multiple selves, Elster 1986). Context as changing meaning emphasizes how similar the theoretical and empirical problems of international relations and comparative politics really are.

This chapter develops some of the ramifications of the concept of context as changing meaning for the study of international politics. “Contextual” models are familiar to students of American politics but not to those who study international relations (see the Postscript to this chapter for a discussion of the “American” contextual literature from my perspective).