PAI-C09: Power, Interdependence, and the Information Age §

Class: IS405 Created Time: October 25, 2021 2:31 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: October 26, 2021 3:38 PM Type: Literature Notes, Presentation Notes

• Modernists in 1970s says the communication technologies are creating a global village
• The inforamtion revolution made transfer of information and communications much faster and closer
  • Created a cyberspace

Traditionalists VS Modernists’ Views of Technological Revolution §

• Traditionalists
  • Traditionalists says states will play importatn roles
  • That vulnerability will lead to bargaining weakness and alack of vulnerability to power
  • Actors will seek to manipulate the new cyberspace
• Modernists
  • cyberspace is truly global
  • it is harder to stop or even monitor the flow of information carrying electrons than to do so for raw materials or goods
  • dramatic reductions in the cost of information transmission make other resources relatively scarce
• Who has the capacity to attract attention to one’s own transfer of information
• Types of politics that are generated
  1. Free Information: flow in absense of rules
  2. Commercial Information: in businesses that protects property rights
  3. Strategic Information: info that is beneficial if the enemy doesn’t get access to it

What is Power? §

1. Behavioral Power
   • Hard Power: through threats and violence
   • Soft Power: through attraction, diplomacy
2. Resource Power
   • Information revolution has a decentralizing effect and leveling the power gaps between states
   • But its’ not true, tehcnolical powerful states are so unreachable to poor states

The Paradox of Plenty and The Politics of Credibility §

• Plenty of information lead to poverty of attention
• those who can distinguish valuable signals from white noise gain power
• credibility is the crucial resource, asymmetrical credibility is a key source of power.
• Information revolution create opportunities for nongovernmental actors allowing them to influence political decisions
• Transparency is becoming a key asset for countries seeking investments
• From a business standpoint, the information revolution has vastly increased the
• marketability and value of commercial information,
• Politically, the ability to disseminate free information increases the potential for persuasion in world politics—as long as credibility can be attained and maintained.