PAI-C01: Interdependence in World Politics §

Class: IS405 Created Time: October 23, 2021 5:12 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: December 29, 2021 8:11 PM Type: Literature Notes

PAD - C1: Interdependence in World Politics §

• Henry Kissinger: says traditional agendas of balance of power and state security is obsolete.
  • Instead the world has become interdependent in economics, communications, and human aspirations
• Modernism school sees these changes coming in ‘a world without borders’
  • criticism: doesn’t consider new forms of power besides military force
• Traditionalism says world’s military has always been interdependent on alliances, coalitions, …
  • But power is still important
    • nuclear deterence
    • ongoing wars right now
    • Soviet blocking telecommunication and transactions to its benefits
    • nationalization of multinational corporation
    • nationalism is up
  • criticism: can only criticize modernist but can’t explain today’s complex economies and interdependence

This chapter will to provide a means of distilling and blending the wisdom in both positions by developing a coherent theoretical framework for the political analysis of interdependence.

• This book answers ‘What are the major features of world politics when interdependence, particularly economic interdependence, is extensive?’

The Change to Interdependence §

• In the Cold War, US used ’national security’ as reasons for foreing policies to achieve the interests of the ‘free world’ at considerable costs.
  • Nixon was caught manipulatingly using national security as excuse in ‘water gate’ affair
• Political leaders says argue that conflicts of interest are reduced by interdependence
  • Leaders argue interdependence is something to be adjusted to with public policy
  • but public policy is what creates interdependence in the first place

1. Interdependence and National Policy is at odds
   • we need models to understand the solve the confusion and problem of extreme interdependence
2. Traditional’s balance of power theories and national security imagery are also poorly adapted to analyzing problems of economic or ecological interdependence.

• International conflicts won’t disappear when interdependence prevail, but conflicts will take new forms or even increase

Interdependence As an Analytical Concept §

• Interconnectedness ≠ interdependence
  • A country importing all its luxury items can live without it
  • But a country relying on essential imports of oil/petroleum wouldn’t survive without another country’s imports
• Where there are reciprocal costly effects of transactions there is interdependence
  • interdependence can be asymetrically beneficial or costly (consider both traditionalist and modernist thoughts)
• 2 perspectives of analyzing cost & benefits of interdependent relationships
  • focusing on joint gains and joint losess of parties involved
    • classical economists: measured through comparative advantage
  • focusing on relative gain and distributional issues
    • Distributional issue: the important thing is who gets what?
• Difference between international politics and politics of economical interdependence isn’t a debate between zero-sum and non-zero-sum
• Interdependence isn’t defined by being equally balanced mutual benefits
  • Actors seek advantagous asymatries in their dealings for leverage for future dealings

Power and Interdependence §

• Forms of power has transformed from traditional millitary might to control of scarce resources, financial capability, and soft power.
  • Power can be thought of as the ability of an actor to get others to do something they otherwise would not do
• 2 dimentions in understanding Power’s role in interdependence

  • sensitivity: how quick and costly are changes in one’s country and affect another’s before policies are altered to change the situation

    a set of policies remains constant may reflect the difficulty in formulating new policies within a short time, or it may reflect a commitment to a certain pattern of domestic and international rules.

    • Policies are unchanging. New policies could take many years or decades to implement
    • sensitivity can be social or political actions spreading as well

  • vulnerability: concerns the relative availability and costliness of the alternatives that various actors face after policies are altered

    • vulnerability dependence can be measured only by the costliness of making effective adjustments to a changed environment over a period of time.
    • if A can replace oil imports with cheaper alternative than B could manage, A would be better off
    • weakness: If one set of rules puts an actor in a disadvantageous position, that actor will probably try to change those rules if it can do so at a reasonable cost
    • economic vulnerable states may use military force to attempt to redress that situation as Japan did in 1941
• even effective manipulation of asymmetrical interdependence within a nonmilitary area can create risks of military counteraction
• asymmetrical interdependencies as sources of power among actors

International Regime Change §

• International Regimes (IRE): are networks of rules, norms, and procedures that reg- ularize behavior and control interdependence relationship’s effects
  • relationships of interdependence often occur within, and may be affected by it.
• IREs have important effects on interdependent relationships
  • IRE can cover functional relations between countries that govern resource sharing, commerce interactions, and communications on an issue-to-issue basis
• What are the characteristics of world politics under conditions of extensive interdependence?
  • Rules and procedures aren’t well enforced as domestic
  • International regimes are intermediate factors between the power structure of an international system (IS) and the political and economic bargaining that takes place with it
    • to some extent governs the political bargaining and daily decision-making that occurs within the IS
• At the process level analysts are interested in how the players play the hands they have been dealt.
• At the structural level they are interested in how the cards and chips were distributed as the game started.