Power and Independence
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, 1989

The book intends to analyse the politics of today's world (eighties and nineties) which is characterized by growing interdependence between nations. The authors argue that the classical tradition of the international relations theory of 1970s and 1980s had two main strands, realism and liberlism, whereby the latter stresses the impact of domestic and international society, interdependence, and international institutions. In their book in a bid to combine the strengths of both strands, Keohane and Nye seek to explain the patterns of change they observed during the early to mid-1970s by integrating aspects of the realist and liberal traditions.

Their core argument is that asymmetrical interdependence is a source of power. This links, as they argue, the liberal stress on interdependence with the realist focus on power. While their analysis has clear liberal characteristics, they build in the realist component mainly with the argument that military power dominates economic power in the sense that economic means alone are likely to be ineffective against the serious use of military force. I believe, however, that as long as military power existes, both are more or less the same: has there been an economically powerfull state with no military power, or the other way around? An army cannot be built without money (and generally military expenditure increases economic power) and money needs to be protected, at least that is according to the realist vision. In fact, armyless states like Switzerland, Costa Rica, Panamá and Haíti are no economic powers; within the current geopolitical setting they depend on others both in economic and militar sense.

The book is based on two main questions. The first main question: What are the major features of world politics when interdependence, particularly economic interdependence, is extensive?

Second main question: How and why do international regimes change? International regimes are defined as governing arrangements that refer to governments regulating and controlling transnational and interstate relations through the creation or adoption of procedures, rules, or institutions for certain kinds of activity.

Interdependence is defined as mutual dependence: it does only refer to mutual benefit as it also has costs, and restricts autonomy. Furthermore, rather than measuring the costs and benefits of an interdependent relationship, the authors intend to focus on relative gains and distributional issues. While globalization of the economy and interdependence between nations was expected to generate economic growth and the latter may have been the main rationale for enhancing it, the issue of who would benefit from it was never really discussed.

The authors consider assymetric interdependence as a source of influence by actors when these deal with one another. Those who are less dependent have a more powerfull bargaining position. The point the authors make is that less dependence with respect to certain issues may provide a stronger bargaining position with respect to other unrelated issues as well (pure assymetry), but there may also be cases in which one state may be less dependent with respect to one issue and more with respect to another (pure dependence). In real life, it all lies somewhere between these two extremes and a certain level of assymetry/dissymetry always exists.

The power of interdependence has two dimensions: sensitivity and vulnerability. In terms of the costs of dependence, sensitivity means liability to costly effects imposed from outside before policies are altered to try to change the situation. It refers, for example, to the immediate economic consequences for a certain economy of a change in the interest rate in the US. Or the immediate political consequences for a certain government of a war being started elsewhere.

Vulnerability, on the other hand, is defined as an actor's liability to suffer costs imposed by external events even after policies have been altered. This refers, in the above examples, to the capacity of that economy to adjust itself to the new interest rate in the US; or the capacity of a government to maintain its political support after it took position with regard to that war.

International regimes, which can be formal and informal, comprehensive or partial, are characterized by their structure and process. The structure of a system refers to the distribution of capabilities among similar units. In internationl political systems the most important units are states, and the relevant capabilities have been regarded as their power resources. The distribution of power in interstate systems has traditionally been analyzed according to the number and importance of major actors. Process, on the other hand, refers to allocative or bargaining behavior within a power structure, or to the way in which actors deal with their respective power resources (or in the absense of these).