ABSTRACT
In this concluding chapter, I consider the findings of this book in relation to the larger scholarly field of international relations. A distinctive feature of this book’s approach is its focus on processes and institutions at the level of international industries. This is in contrast to the prevailing tendency in the field of international relations to focus on systems-level factors such as the distribution of capabilities across the competitive state-system or structural elements of the global economy. Moreover, the field of international relations has been dominated by approaches that stress the preeminence of states in world affairs, a contrast with this book’s tracing of patterns to variations in industrial technologies. As noted in Chapter 1, one international relations approach that also has been used to analyze industries is the regime theory. However, even regimes have often been linked conceptually to systemic patterns such as the rise and decline of hegemonic states and theories have generally been state-centric. Thus, in considering the implications of this book’s findings for the field of international relations, it is important to discuss further the relationship between the industry-level patterns upon which it has focused and systemic factors, and to reflect on the relative merits of technology-centered and state-centered approaches.
