Escude Peripheral Realism Research

In view of the incapability of the Peripheral Realism Theory - established by the Argentine scholar Carlos Escudé- to explain the difference of gains in Mexican and Argentine's adjustments of their policies towards U.S. shortly before and after the end of Cold War, the thesis attempts to explore this diversity. The exploring logic is developed as follows: First, the theoretical sources, the development and the normative assumptions of Escudé's theory will be identified. Then, based on Escudé's works, the mode of the process of the policy taken by the peripheral toward great power and its normative implications will be presented. After that, this mode will be employed to explain the Mexican and Argentine cases, and its explanatory inadequacy discovered. Subsequently, a new variable, i.e., interdependence, will be introduced to improve the mode. Through the method of hypothesis testing, the proposed hypothesis and the mechanism of causation will be verified. Finally, the difference of gains in Mexican and Argentine's adjustments of their policies towards U.S. will be fully explained. The newly found variable will be patched into the old cloth,the modified mode of the process of the policy taken by the peripheral toward great power and its normative implications will be presented.