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Theoretical Perspectives for Understanding International Interdependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Stanley J. Michalak Jr
Affiliation:
Franklin and Marshall College
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Abstract

In Power and Interdependence, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye make a major contribution to the discipline by explicating a theoretical model for conceptualizing interdependence and isolating a set of variables that will enhance further understanding of the politics of such issues. What is needed next is a series of studies that explores the interrelationships among the variables Keohane and Nye identify. Because these interrelationships will surely vary with interdependency contexts within which bargaining takes place, five such contexts are outlined. Until this research is done, the advice that Keohane and Nye offer policy makers in the developed countries must be considered premature. The essay concludes with some critical comments about Keohane and Nye's discussion of political realism.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1979

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References

1 See, for example, Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown 1971)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 1, 3, 5, and 7; Halpern, Morton H. and Kanter, Arnold, Readings in American Foreign Policy: A Bureaucratic Perspective (Boston: Little, Brown 1973)Google Scholar, esp. the Introduction, 1–43.

2 Polanyi, , The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press 1957).Google Scholar

3 Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations (4th ed.; New York: Knopf 1967), 224–25.Google Scholar All citations from this work are taken from the 4th edition because that is the one from which Keohane and Nye draw their presentation and quotations.

4 Ibid., 264–65.

5 Ibid., see esp. 448–49, 478–80.

6 See Aron's, RaymondPeace and War (New York: Doubleday 1966), 591600Google Scholar, for a discussion of the difference between Machtpolitik and realism, with a critique of each.

7 Morgenthau, (fn. 3), 156–57.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 521; emphasis added.

9 Ibid., 136.

10 This same criticism of Keohane and Nye was made by K. J. Holsti in his review of Power and Interdependence which appeared in International Organization, XXXII (Spring 1978), 513–31, under the title, “A New International Politics? Diplomacy in Complex Interdependence.” The present manuscript was completed before Holsti's review was published.

11 Morgenthau, , “Five Critical Problems: Foreign Policy and the Next President,” The New Leader, April 16, 1976, p. 8Google Scholar; emphasis added.

12 Kennan, , “After the Cold War: American Foreign Policy in the 1970's,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 51 (October 1972), 226.Google Scholar