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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley and The International Studies Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Studies Quarterly.Advances in our understanding of the concept of power in international relations have been distant from the concerns of practically-minded researchers, especially those working on issues of traditional realist high politics. The study of how arms transfer relationships are used as a tool of statecraft is an example. Examining American and Soviet relations with arms transfer clients, one can distinguish three different dimensions of influence sought by patron states: bargaining power, structural power, and hegemonic power. The existing literature deals inadequately with these analytic distinctions. Since the goals pursued by states through arms transfer relationships cover all three types of influence, a more nuanced understanding of influence will advance the arms transfers literature.

This article presents a critical overview of the contemporary practice of post-conflict peacebuilding (PCPB), arguing that contemporary post-conflict operations rest upon the assumption that a sophisticated social engineering approach could replace, or accelerate, a process of state formation that occurs rather more organically. Yet, PCPB is subject to the same tensions and dilemmas as the process of state formation. Many recent post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes have been conducted with little critical self-reflection on the underlying assumptions or structural biases of PCPB efforts. One major reason for this is the missing connection, in the minds of policymakers and practitioners, between security and development concerns. The concept of human security can help bridge this gap and is also compatible with a form of Popperian ‘piecemeal’ social engineering that is more consistent with a critical approach to PCPB.