This distinction is related to that between sovereignty and globalization. The realist tradition assumes that power is the ulti-
mate arbiter of outcomes in international relations. Both the internationalist and
the universalist traditions take interdependence as a basic assumption. Dependence
refers to a situation in which a state cannot effectively make and enforce policy on
its own, but can do so only in cooperation with another country or countries.
Interdependence is when these other countries, in turn, also find themselves
dependent on the first country. A key part of the concept of interdependence, then,
is reciprocity. 1 The internationalist response to interdependence is cooperation
among states. The universalist response is the replacement of states by centralization
of decision-making.
One interpretation of the internationalist tradition would be that with multilat-
eral cooperation in decision-making, cooperation would replace power as the focus
of international politics. The debate between the pure cooperation position and the
pure power position has often taken place using the language of absolute and rela-
tive gains. 2 Absolute gains are gains that states make compared with what would
have been the case otherwise. For example, if a bilateral free trade agreement
increases gross economic output of the two countries that have signed it by 3 per-
cent over what would have been the case without the agreement, and both coun-
tries share in that increase equally, then both countries would have absolute gains
of 3 percent in their GDPs. Relative gains are gains that a state makes in comparison
with its rivals. For example, if two rival states increase their military force levels by
3 percent each, neither will have made a relative gain, because their force levels
would have stayed the same relative to each other. If, however, one state’s force level
stays the same and that of its rival increases by one division, the first state’s relative
force level would have declined by a division, even though its absolute force level
stayed the same.
If one state makes a gain of 4 percent and the other a gain of 2 percent, both
states would have gained in absolute terms, but in relative terms, one state would
have gained and the other would have lost. Whether a state in this situation
J. S. Barkin, International Organization: Theories and Institutions
© J. Samuel Barkin 2006
perceives itself as gaining or losing depends on how that state defines its interests.
Realists, who tend to see issues of security as paramount, argue that in measures of
military capabilities only relative gains matter, because military capabilities are
measured against the capabilities of other states. Economists, for whom trade issues
are paramount, usually focus on absolute gains, because what matters to them is the
ability of individuals to consume. Therefore, they focus on the amount available to
individuals with international cooperation compared with the amount available to
the same individuals without cooperation.3
Despite the relative/absolute gains debate, most students of international organ-
izations (IOs) would agree that states care about both. In multilateral negotiations,
states generally care about both a good overall outcome and an outcome that
reflects their own particular national interests, although the balance between the
two can vary.4 States that participate in trade negotiations, for example, are likely to
care both that the agreement maximizes global economic output and that they ben-
efit individually as much as possible from the increase in output. In other words,
both interdependence and power matter. The question for students of IOs then
becomes, How do we study and contrast these two phenomena?
The phrase “power and interdependence” is familiar to most students of inter-
national relations theory from a book of the same title by Robert Keohane and
Joseph Nye, first published in 1977. 5 Keohane and Nye argue that the traditional
focus by students of power politics on force in international affairs is becoming
obsolete. In some parts of the world, such as India and Pakistan, military power
still matters. But, argue Keohane and Nye, in other parts of the world, such as the
United States and Canada, the military balance is largely irrelevant, because neither
country considers the use of force to settle bilateral disputes. They call the pattern
of international relations in these latter parts of the world “complex interdepend-
ence.” 6
Complex interdependence has three key characteristics. As already mentioned,
one of these characteristics is that military force plays a minor role in settling dis-
putes. A second characteristic is that states have multiple channels of communica-
tion with each other. In essence, this means that national bureaucracies negotiate
directly with each other. For example, if the United States and Canada are negoti-
ating a fisheries agreement, it will probably be negotiated between officials of the
National Marine Fisheries Service and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans,
rather than by the Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister. On other issues,
other sets of bureaucrats in different bureaucratic hierarchies negotiate with each
other, often without much central coordination. The third characteristic is that
there is no clear hierarchy of issues. In a traditional realist world, national security
issues matter more than other issues. In a complex interdependent world, states do
not clearly prioritize issues. A diverse array of issue-areas, ranging from security to
trade, finance, the environment, human rights, telecommunications policy, and
health policy may find their way onto the international agenda, but states do not
clearly prioritize among them.
This complex interdependent world is similar to the globalized world, with coop-
eration among states, envisioned by internationalists, as discussed in Chapter 1.
States generally deal with global issues multilaterally, without clearly prioritizing
