Interdependence in International Organization and Global Governance

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger A. Coate ◽  
Jeffrey A. Griffin ◽  
Steven Elliott-Gower
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Transnational Relations ◽  
Technical Issues ◽  
International Systems

Interdependence is a key structural feature of the international system. While ambiguity exists over the concept and its usage, interdependence is central for explaining the nature and dynamics of international organization (IO), as well as international relations more broadly conceived. Interdependence involves interconnection/linkages among actors and systems of interrelationships of actors. Yet, interdependence means more than simple interconnectedness. It entails a relationship in which two or more parties are linked in a system of action in such a way that changes in one party impact in some meaningful way on the attainment of needs, values, and/or desired outcomes of the others. In other words, the satisfaction of each party’s needs and values is contingent to some degree on the behavior of others. The concept of interdependence is used in several areas. In general international systems, a system functions as a whole because of the interdependence of its parts. Interdependence also plays a significant role in Immanuel Wallenstein’s world-systems theory, as well as the closely related concept of dependency. Another important analytical thread in interdependence theorizing has been international integration, where the creation of cooperative transnational linkages for dealing with technical issues could result in a learning process that changed attitudes about cooperation. Finally, with interdependence as a core element, more systematic frameworks for analyzing and explaining the nature and role of transnational relations in world politics can be made.

scholarly journals ACTUAL DISCOURE ABOUT TIPES FND DEVELOPMENT TENDENCIES NATIONAL STATE

2013 ◽  
pp. 195-203
Author(s):  
E. G. Ponomareva
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
International Systems

The processes of globalization have determined significant changes in the prerogatives of nation states. In the twenty-first century the state no longer acts as a sole subject having a monopoly of integrating the interests of large social communities and representing them on the world stage. An ever increasing role in the global political process is played by transnational and supranational participants. However, despite the uncertainty and ambiguity of the ways of the development of the modern world, it can be argued that in the foreseeable future it is the states that will maintain the role of the main actors in world politics and bear the responsibility for global security and development. All this naturally makes urgent the issues related to the search for optimal models of nation state development. The article analyzes approaches to understanding patterns, problems and prospects of the development of this institution existing in modern political science. These include the concept of "dimensionality" based on the parameters of scale (the size of the territory) of the states and their functions in the international systems, as well as the "political order". In the latter case the paper analyzes four models: the nation-state, statenation, consociation, quasi-state. The author's position consists in the substantiation of the close dependence of the success of a model of the state on its inner nature, i.e. statehood. On the basis of the elaborated approach the author understands statehood as "the result of historical, economic, political and foreign policy activity of a particular society in order to create a relatively rigid political framework that provides spatial, institutional and functional unity, that is, the condition of the society’s own state, national political system." Thus statehood acts as a qualitative feature of the state.

Billionaires in World Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hägel
Keyword(s):  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Bill Gates ◽  
Change Mitigation

This book shows how the privatization of politics assumes a new dimension when billionaires wield power in world politics, which requires a re-thinking of individual agency in International Relations. Structural changes (globalization, neoliberalism, competition states, and global governance) have generated new opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics across borders. The political agency of billionaires is being conceptualized in terms of capacities, goals, and power, which is contingent upon the specific political field a billionaire is trying to enter. Six case studies explore the power of billionaires in their pursuit of security, wealth, and esteem. The chapter on security analyzes Raj Rajaratnam’s relationship to the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka, and Sheldon Adelson's transnational electioneering in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Regarding the economy, the book studies how the Koch brothers' political protection of fossil fuels is affecting climate change mitigation, and how Rupert Murdoch's opinion-shaping is valorizing conservatism across borders. The chapter on social entrepreneurship and esteem examines the role of Bill Gates in the governance of global health and George Soros's attempts to build open societies as a 'stateless statesman'. An analytical conclusion evaluates the prior findings in order to address three major questions: Is it more appropriate to see billionaires as 'super-actors', or as a global 'super-class'? What is the relative power of billionaires within the international system? What does the power of billionaires mean for the liberal norms of legitimate political order?

scholarly journals On the concept of international disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Order And Disorder ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Systems

International relations today are widely considered to be experiencing deepening disorder and the topic of international disorder is gaining increased attention. Yet, despite this recent interest in international disorder, in and beyond the academy, and despite the decades-long interest in international order, there is still little agreement on the concept of international disorder, which is often used imprecisely and with an alarmist rather than analytical usage. This is a problem if international disorder is to be understood in theory, towards addressing its concomitant problems and effects in practice. As such, this article identifies and explores two ways international order studies can benefit from a clearer and more precise conception of international disorder. First, it enables a more complete picture of how orderly international orders have been. Second, a greater understanding of the problem of international order is illuminated by a clearer grasp of the relation between order and disorder in world politics. The article advances these arguments in three steps. First, an analytical concept of international disorder is developed and proposed. Second, applying it to the modern history of international order, the extent to which there is a generative relationship between order and disorder in international systems is explored. Third, it specifies the deepening international disorder in international affairs today. It concludes by indicating a research agenda for International Relations and international order studies that takes the role of international disorder more seriously.

National Attitudes and International Order: The National Studies on International Organization

1959 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
National Studies ◽  
National Attitudes ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

In 1952 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace initiated a series of national studies on international organization which were to be carried out by private groups and individuals in more than twenty countries. They were to provide an appraisal of the national experience of these countries in international organizations, especially the United Nations, ten years after the San Francisco conference. Fourteen volumes in the series have now been published. Three more will be published soon, including the two final volumes which summarize and discuss the conclusions of the individual studies. These two works have been written, respectively, by Maurice Bourquin, Professor of International Public Law at the University of Geneva, and by Robert MacIver, Lieber Professor Emeritus of Political Philosophy and Sociology at Columbia University. Other national studies have been completed and were available to Professors Bourquin and MacIver, but they have not been published yet; this reviewer has not seen them and will therefore limit his own remarks to the reports which have been or are soon to be published. I will examine first the questions which the national studies were supposed to answer and the way in which the various authors have tried to answer them; then I will present some general comments about the national attitudes toward international organization, as they emerge from the series; finally I will discuss the role of the UN in present world politics, as it can be interpreted on the basis of the national reports.

Alternatives to “Legalization”: Richer Views of Law and Politics

2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 743-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Finnemore ◽  
Stephen J. Toope
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Legal Rationality ◽  
Legal Processes

The authors of “Legalization and World Politics” (International Organization, 54, 3, summer 2000) define “legalization” as the degree of obligation, precision, and delegation that international institutions possess. We argue that this definition is unnecessarily narrow. Law is a broad social phenomenon that is deeply embedded in the practices, beliefs, and traditions of societies. Understanding its role in politics requires attention to the legitimacy of law, to custom and law's congruence with social practice, to the role of legal rationality, and to adherence to legal processes, including participation in law's construction. We examine three applications of “legalization” offered in the volume and show how a fuller consideration of law's role in politics can produce concepts that are more robust intellectually and more helpful to empirical research.

World Politics by Other Means? London, City Diplomacy and the Olympics

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 287-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Acuto
Keyword(s):  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
International Role ◽  
Mega Event

Summary Drawing on the case of the Olympics, and in particular on the role of London in securing, planning and administering the 2012 Summer Games, this article investigates how cities participate in world politics beyond the traditional avenues of the international system. Tracing how the planning of a sporting mega-event has been woven into London’s international role as a global ‘green’ leader, the article seeks to shed some light on the diplomatic role of cities, as well as on how sport has been used in relation to city diplomacy and urban governance. The Olympics offer a unique window on the multi-scalar reach of these subnational authorities, allowing for substantial public diplomacy initiatives. Major cities such as London, as the article argues, can exert a pervasive diplomatic influence, and planning for sporting events can extend their capacity to link ‘city diplomacy’ with tangible impacts on everyday lives.

Grand strategy in a post-bipolar world: interpreting the final Soviet response

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-375
Author(s):  
Raymond Taras ◽  
Marshal Zeringue
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Do So

All great powers have a grand strategy—including great powers on the verge of collapse. Each power develops its code of national security ends and means differently. Among the myriad factors which explain particular grand strategies, the most important consideration is the distribution of power capabilities in the international system. Regardless of each state's desire to operate independently—to be master of its own grand strategy—the structure of world politics offers little latitude to do so. As in the case of decision-making processes in organizations and bureaucracies, the international system imposes its own constraints and incentives on the security goals of individual states. Primarily addressing the international environment, however, systems theory ‘provides criteria for differentiating between stable and unstable political configurations.’ The first objective of this essay is to explore the role of structure as an indirect influence on the behaviour of its constituent actors, in this case, states. ‘The effects [of structure] are produced in two ways: through socialization of the actors and through competition among them.’

Increasing the Incentives for International Cooperation

1971 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 866-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mancur Olson
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
International System ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
Technical Issues

I am happy to respond to the invitation to comment on Bruce Russett's and John Sullivan's most useful and sensible article. The concept of collective goods must play a starring role in any adequate theory of international organization and cooperation so there is every reason to encourage work of this kind. Russett's and Sullivan's article is, moreover, worthy of extension and criticism on many specific points. On some of these points I have minor technical (or in some cases expositional) criticisms. But relevant as such technical issues can be, they attract only a specialized interest and are of far less practical importance than Russett's and Sullivan's central concern with the conditions under which more international collective goods can be obtained. They ask, in effect, how patterns of international organization and cooperation that could help to improve the inefficient, and at times even chaotic and violent, international system could in practice be attained.

The fragmentation and consolidation of international systems

1997 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart J. Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Integration ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Stability Theory ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Hegemonic Stability

The world today, Benjamin Barber points out, is “falling precipitantly apart and coming reluctantly together at the very same moment.” While states from Canada to India are threatened with breakup due to fractious nationalist impulses of their peoples, the power of technology and markets is forcing ever-tighter economic integration worldwide. From a common-sense perspective, these two impulses are among the most important processes in contemporary world politics. Yet, there has been remarkably little attention paid to developing a theory of the international system that examines the effects of both. Hegemonic stability theory considers economic integration but not nationalism; the few studies of nationalism as a systemic force play down the effects of economic integration; and neorealism, the most widely accepted theory of the international system, has no room to address either trend. The field is, partly as a result, a cacaphony of voices largely talking past one another.

scholarly journals Diaspora knowledge networks for development

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anusha Sundaram
Keyword(s):  
Network Formation ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Knowledge Networks ◽  
Brain Circulation ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Global Order ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Relationship

This paper will consider the concept of Diaspora Knowledge Networks, (DKNs) and examine the relationship between DKNs and homeland development. Using a framework of World Systems Theory, it will lay out how skilled labour migration leads to diaspora network formation and that tactical brain circulation on the part of DKNs can provide home countries with the agency in the World System through a form of transnationalism from below. Recognizing that DKNs are socially constructed, and as a result replete with gender and power imbalances, it is posited that DKNs feed into and reproduce the global division of labour and with it all the implications for migration that go with this new global order. Finally this paper lays out the gaps within the literature on DKNs, namely in the areas of gender, race and the role of state securitization, and calls for further research so that policies harnessing DKNs for development may be more effective.

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