ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that inquiries on authority can usefully be made in terms of any particular political interaction in a specific counterpart relationship. It provides a conceptual framework for analysis and offers the outline of an evaluation of the several primary characteristics of the counterpart relationship and suggests that directions for policy changes. The ethical parameters of the counterpart relationship focus on a central question in human relations which has become the moral cornerstone of the claims on behalf of the new economic order: justice. One could object that the Rawlsian analysis of justice is inappropriate to account for the rules which are to be used to evaluate the character of the relationship between different nations or, as manifested in the counterpart relationship, between nationals of different nations. The policy changes implied by the evaluation of the counterpart arrangement from an educational perspective are sweeping and profound.