Week 3 Reading Notes (Globalization class)

Reading Notes: Power, Interdependence & Collective Action

1. Baldwin, "Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies" (1979)

Core argument: Power should be treated as contextual and relational, not as a generalized, fungible resource. Baldwin critiques the tendency to treat power like money — something that can be stockpiled and transferred across situations.

Main Themes

A. The "Paradox of Unrealized Power"

• Why do "weak" states (Vietnam, Arab states) often defeat or resist "strong" states?

• Two competing explanations:

  1. Conversion-process explanation: strong actors have the resources but fail to convert them into actual power due to lack of skill/will ("had the cards but played them poorly")

  2. Relative-infungibility explanation (Baldwin's preferred view): power resources are only useful within a specific "policy-contingency framework" — assets in one context become liabilities in another ("had a great bridge hand but was playing poker")

B. Scope and Domain

• Any statement about power must specify who is influencing whom, with respect to what (scope) and over whom(domain)

• Drawing on Dahl, Lasswell & Kaplan, and the Sprouts' "policy-contingency framework"

• Power resources (tanks, money, oil) are not inherently powerful — they only matter relative to a specific context

C. Low Fungibility of Power Resources

• Unlike money, political power has no common denominator/medium of exchange

• Resources useful in one context (nuclear weapons for deterrence) can be liabilities in another (winning a UN election, "hearts and minds")

• Therefore: "worst-case" military planning is flawed, since preparing for one contingency can undermine capacity in others

D. Critique of Specific Scholars

• Knorr: risks treating power as a possessable "thing" rather than relational

• Cline: treats power as measurable via a formula (ignores scope/domain entirely)

• Keohane & Nye: praised for skepticism about fungibility, but criticized for not going far enough — they don't place the burden of proof on those claiming high fungibility

E. Other Traditional Debates Revisited

• Military force: often wrongly treated as the "ultimate" form of power — but this assumes fungibility

• Positive sanctions (rewards): understudied compared to negative sanctions (threats); linked to social exchange theory

• Zero-sum framing: politics is often not zero-sum; the Dahl-Lasswell-Kaplan view of power allows mutual gains

• Compellence vs. deterrence (Schelling): Baldwin argues this distinction is overstated — differences attributed to threat-type are really just differences in the "autonomous probability" of the outcome

F. Conclusion

• Calls for contextual, middle-range theorizing about power rather than grand unified theories

• Power measurement is not dead — "has just begun" (quoting Alker)

2. Keohane & Nye, "Power and Interdependence Revisited" (1987)

Core argument: A ten-years-later retrospective/self-critique of their 1977 book Power and Interdependence, assessing what held up and what needs rethinking.

Main Themes

A. Three Original Themes of the 1977 Book

1. Power-oriented bargaining analysis — asymmetrical interdependence as a source of power/leverage

2. "Complex interdependence" — an ideal type (contrasted with realism) featuring: multiple channels of contact, no hierarchy of issues, military force not used among the parties

3. International regime change — four models explaining how governing arrangements evolve

B. Self-Critique: What Worked

• The bargaining/interdependence analysis (linked to realism) was the most successful and widely adopted

• The concept of international regimes was hugely influential and spawned a large research program (though "regimes" risk becoming an overused catch-all)

• Their warning that military force remains costly but not obsolete held up reasonably well

C. Self-Critique: What Underperformed

• Complex interdependence was underdeveloped and often misunderstood — readers mistook it for a description of reality rather than an ideal type

• They never developed a real theory of linkage between issues (they even discarded a draft chapter on it as too vague)

• They neglected domestic politics — treated state preferences/interests as exogenously given, which limited their ability to explain why interests change

D. New Directions Proposed

1. Systemic political process: structure (distribution of capabilities) alone doesn't explain behavior; process (patterns of interaction, institutions, rules) matters too — argue for synthesizing neorealism (structure) with liberalism (process)

2. Learning: distinguishing a "spare" definition of learning (belief change from new information) from a "broader" definition (improved effectiveness) — argue research should start with the spare definition to avoid definitional confusion

E. Big Picture

• Reject the idea that interdependence theory is obsolete just because the 1980s seemed more security-focused than the 1970s

• Call for blurring the boundary between international relations and comparative politics (domestic-international linkages) as the next research frontier

3. Nye, "Soft Power" (1990)

Core argument: Introduces the concept of "soft power" — the ability to get others to want what you want (co-optive power) rather than forcing them via military/economic coercion (hard/command power). Written to push back against "American decline" narratives.

Main Themes

A. Debunking "Declinism"

• U.S. share of global product has been relatively stable since the mid-1970s (the post-WWII high was an artificial anomaly, not a "normal" baseline)

• Excessive anxiety about decline risks pushing the U.S. toward counterproductive protectionism/isolationism

B. The Diffusion of Power (Five Trends)

1. Economic interdependence — trade/financial flows have exploded, making unilateral state control harder

2. Transnational actors — multinational corporations rival states in resources and can reshape national interests

3. Nationalism in weak/developing states — makes military occupation/intervention far costlier (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran 1979 vs. 1953)

4. Spread of technology — more countries acquiring chemical/nuclear/missile capabilities, empowering smaller states and even non-state actors (terrorists, guerrillas)

5. Changing political issues — many modern problems (drugs, disease, environment) are transnational and can't be solved by traditional state-vs-state power politics

C. Declining Fungibility of Power

• Echoes Baldwin's point: military power converts less easily into economic/other power than in the 18th century

• "Power for what?" — context always matters more now

D. Hard Power vs. Soft Power

• Hard/command power: getting others to change behavior via coercion (force, sanctions, payments)

• Soft/co-optive power: getting others to want what you want, via:

  • Cultural attraction (American media, language, consumer culture)

  • Ideological appeal (democracy, human rights)

  • International institutions (IMF, GATT) that embed one's own values into global rules

• U.S. has unusually large soft power reserves: language dominance, openness to immigrants, and cultural exports (film, TV)

• Japan, by contrast, has economic strength but weaker soft power due to cultural insularity

E. Policy Implication

• U.S. "decline" is really diffusion of power, not an absolute loss — and the U.S. retains more hard and soft power than any single rival

• The real challenge for the U.S. isn't a new hegemonic rival but managing complex, transnational interdependence

4. Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968)

Core argument: Certain resource/population problems have "no technical solution" — they require a fundamental change in morality/social arrangements, not just better technology.

Main Themes

A. "No Technical Solution" Problems

• A technical solution requires only a change in techniques (natural sciences); Hardin argues population growth is notsolvable this way

• You cannot maximize two variables simultaneously (math: population size vs. "good per person") — Bentham's "greatest good for the greatest number" is a mathematical impossibility in a finite world

B. The Tragedy of the Commons (Core Parable)

• A shared pasture open to all herdsmen

• Each rational herdsman calculates: adding one more animal gives him +1 utility (all profit is his), but the cost of overgrazing is shared among everyone (only a fraction of -1 to him)

• Therefore, every rational actor is incentivized to keep adding animals

• Result: the commons is destroyed — "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all"

C. Applications of the Logic

1. Pollution (the "reverse" commons): instead of taking resources out, people put waste in — same incentive structure applies, since the cost of dumping is shared but the benefit of not treating waste is individual

2. National Parks: limited in size, but population/demand grows without limit — must be rationed somehow (private property, auction, lottery, first-come-first-served — all imperfect)

3. Freedom to breed: in a welfare state, overbreeding by some imposes costs on everyone (via shared social resources) — Hardin argues unlimited reproductive freedom is unsustainable

D. Why Appeals to Conscience Fail

• Appealing to individual conscience to self-restrain is not only ineffective long-term but actively selects against conscience — those without scruples will out-reproduce/out-exploit those who restrain themselves, a "pathogenic" and self-eliminating strategy

• Creates a psychological "double bind" (per Bateson) — contradictory messages ("don't do it or we'll condemn you" / "if you do restrain yourself, we'll quietly think you're a sucker")

E. Proposed Solution: "Mutual Coercion, Mutually Agreed Upon"

• Not propaganda or appeals to responsibility, but enforceable social arrangements (laws, taxes, property rights) — created democratically ("mutually agreed upon") but binding on everyone

• Property + inheritance systems, though imperfect/"unjust," are preferable to the alternative of a destroyed commons

• Coercion isn't inherently bad — we already accept it (e.g., taxation) because the alternative (relying on unenforced conscience) is worse

F. Conclusion

• "Freedom is the recognition of necessity" (via Hegel) — true freedom means accepting the necessity of restraint on breeding/resource use, not limitless freedom that ultimately destroys the shared resource

• The commons "if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low population density"

How These Four Readings Connect

Detailed Theoretical Foundations & Causal Power Debates

• Intellectual Genealogy of Causal Power:

  • Watershed publication: Harold Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan's Power and Society (1950) marked the transition from intuitive, ambiguous treatments of power to precise causal frameworks.

  • Subsequent key contributors: Herbert Simon (1953, 1957), James March (1955), Robert Dahl (1957, 1968, 1976), Jack Nagel (1968, 1975), and Felix Oppenheim (1976).

  • Three rationales for causal power models (Jack Nagel):

  1. Compelling conceptual alignment between intuitive notions of social power and physical/scientific causation.

  2. Prevention of circular logic and tautological explanations in empirical research.

  3. Ability to utilize established statistical, mathematical, and scientific methods developed for general causal analysis.

• Quantitative Power Formulas and Cline's Assessment:

  • Ray S. Cline's (World Power Assessment, 1975) mathematical formula for perceived national power:     $Pp = (C + E + M) \times (S + W)$     where $Pp$ is perceived power, $C$ is critical mass (population plus territory), $E$ is economic capability, $M$ is military capability, $S$ is strategic purpose, and $W$ is national will.

  • Empirical allocations in Cline's calculus: Assigns $35$ total weighted power units to the United States and $67.5$ units to the Soviet Union. Strategy weights were assigned as $0.3$ for the United States versus $0.8$ for the Soviet Union (rewarding explicit imperial/aggrandizement planning).

  • Theoretical flaws in monolithic formulas: Ignores context, scope, and domain. Assumes power assets in one setting retain equal value across all scenarios, failing Frank Knight's (1921) resource principle that assets are defined exclusively by their specific end-use.

• Re-evaluating Dahl and Power Classification (Critique of Jeffrey Hart):

  • Jeffrey Hart (1976) categorized power approaches into three distinct types:

  1. Control over resources

  2. Control over actors

  3. Control over events and outcomes

  • Hart classified Robert Dahl's relational definition ($A$ getting $B$ to do $X$) strictly under "control over actors."

  • David Baldwin refutes Hart's classification: Dahl's causal framework explicitly requires specifying both scope (outcomes) and domain (actors). Failing to specify scope renders power statements meaningless; thus, Dahl's model is fundamentally an outcome-oriented causal definition fully equipped to handle mutual interdependence.

• Re-evaluating Compellence vs. Deterrence (Critique of Thomas Schelling):

  • Schelling's thesis: Compellence ("getting an actor to do something") is inherently harder, more ambiguous, more conspicuously compliant, and less credible in assurances than deterrence ("stopping an actor from starting something").

  • Rebuttal via autonomous probability: The observed differences stem entirely from the low autonomous probability of the outcome ($X$)—i.e., attempting to make an unlikely event happen versus maintaining an already likely status quo.

  • Counter-examples in threat clarity and compliance: Compellent threats such as "Breathe or I'll shoot" or "Act normally or I'll shoot" feature extreme clarity and low compliance friction, whereas deterrent demands like "Do nothing that will upset me" are highly ambiguous.

Advanced Interdependence, Issue-Linkage, & Regime Dynamics

• Historiography and Comparative Historical Friction:

  • Historical commentary on Keohane & Nye (1977): Stanley J. Michalak (1979) noted the book risked becoming the Politics Among Nations of the 1970s; Seyom Brown (1974) described the era as a "polyarchy" lacking a single dominant structure.

  • Historical contrast in force utility: Eisenhower administration interventions in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), and Lebanon (1958) succeeded at low cost, whereas 1980s U.S. interventions in Iran, Nicaragua, and Lebanon met severe obstacles due to social mobilization and heightened national consciousness in host populations.

• Asymmetric Interdependence and Issue-Linkage Mechanics:

  • Harrison Wagner's critique of asymmetric interdependence: Being asymmetrically less dependent is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to exercise bilateral influence in equilibrium. A weaker actor with intense preferences on a single issue can offer major concessions elsewhere to achieve its primary objective.

  • Linkage typologies:

  • Ernst B. Haas: Differentiates tactical linkage (short-term transactional bargaining), fragmented linkage (imperfectly understood linkages), and substantive linkage (grounded in shared scientific or causal understandings).

  • Kenneth Oye and Arthur Stein: Distinguish blackmailing / coerced linkage (threatening unwanted actions) from back-scratching / threat-induced linkage (offering positive quid-pro-quo trades). This aligns with Schelling's theorem: promises are costly when successful, whereas threats are costly when they fail.

  • Formal/Game-theoretic approaches: Robert Tollison and Thomas Willett (1979) public choice models; James Sebenius (1983, 1984) game-theoretic analysis of Law of the Sea negotiations.

• Legal Origins and Broad Scope of International Regimes:

  • Antecedents in international law: Precedes political science usage, appearing in Fernand de Visscher (1924, Turkish Straits), L. Oppenheim (1937, Luxembourg and Elbe River), David Leive (1976), and American Journal of International Law studies by Butler (1968, Russian waters), Young (1968, deep-sea floor), Harris (1968, diplomatic privileges), Reisman (1980, straits), and Moore (1980, straits).

  • Specialized empirical regime literature: Antarctica (Peterson, 1980); Civil aviation (Jönsson, 1981); Third World debt (Lipson, 1981); International shipping (Cafruny, 1985); Commodity trade (Zacher, 1987); Foreign capital protection (Lipson, 1985); Structural conflict (Krasner, 1985); Multi-Fiber Arrangement / Textiles (Aggarwal, 1985; Yoffie, 1983); Non-proliferation (Smith, 1987); Cuban Missile Crisis norms (Abram Chayes, 1974); Soviet proposal for international nuclear safety regimes following Chernobyl (Mikhail Gorbachev, June 3, 1986).

• Systemic Process vs. Neorealist Structure:

  • Kenneth Waltz (Theory of International Politics, 1979) restricts system structure strictly to the distribution of power capabilities across units (bipolarity vs. multipolarity).

  • Paul W. Schroeder (1986): Demonstrates that 19th-century Concert of Europe stability resulted from evolving systemic political processes and international norms protecting small states, rather than shifts in structural capability distribution.

  • Agenda formation stages (Mansbach and Vasquez, 1981, 1983): genesis $\rightarrow$ crisis $\rightarrow$ ritualization $\rightarrow$ dormancy $\rightarrow$ decision making $\rightarrow$ authoritative allocation.

• Elites, Cognitive Learning, and State Institutions:

  • Conceptual definitions of learning: Lloyd Etheredge (1981, 1985) defines learning as belief alteration through new information; Ernst Haas (1980, 1986) defines learning as state awareness of strategic interdependence leading to redefined national self-interest.

  • Historical misapplications of learned lessons: Harry S. Truman applying Munich lessons to Korea (1950); Korean War intervention risks shaping Vietnam military restraint (1960s); Western arms control analysts mistakenly assuming the Soviet Union would copy U.S. force structures during the 1970s.

  • Role of international regimes in learning: Facilitate incremental learning by modifying standard operating procedures (SOPs) in national bureaucracies, creating coalition opportunities for subnational actors, providing compliance information, and decoupling issue-areas.

Empirics of Power Diffusion, Intangible Assets, & Soft Power

• Quantitative Metrics of American Power Share:

  • Post-WWII economic output share fell from over $33\%$ in 1945 to a stable baseline of $22\%\text{--}23\%$ by the mid-1970s.

  • Council on Competitiveness: U.S. share of world product averaged $23\%$ annually from 1975 through the late 1980s.

  • CIA Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) data: U.S. share of world product increased from $22\%$ in 1975 to $26\%$ in 1988.

  • Re-adjustment period: Major structural adjustment occurred under President Nixon between 1969 and 1973 through withdrawal from Vietnam and ending dollar-gold convertibility.

• Corporate, Financial, and Intangible Power Assets:

  • Multinationals vs. States: Overseas production by multinational corporations (MNCs) exceeds total global trade volume. Thirty MNCs have annual sales exceeding the Gross National Products (GNPs) of $90$ nations. Annual profits of IBM and Royal Dutch/Shell individual exceed central government budgets of Colombia, Kenya, or Yugoslavia.

  • U.S. corporate dominance: $34\%$ of the world's largest MNCs are headquartered in the United States, compared to $18\%$ in Japan.

  • Global financial market explosion: Daily foreign exchange trading grew from \\$10\text{--}15\text{ billion} in 1975 to \\$200\text{ billion} in 1986 ($25\times$ average daily physical trade in goods).

  • Redefining national interest: Honda of America exporting $50{,}000$ U.S.-built vehicles annually to Japan; France dropping its $3\%$ import ceiling on Japanese automobiles once Japanese manufacturing plants were built in neighboring European Community countries.

  • Paradox of debtor power: Owing a bank \\$10{,}000 gives the bank power over the debtor; owing \\$100\text{ million} gives the debtor power over the bank (e.g., U.S. vulnerability to socio-economic collapse in Mexico or the Caribbean triggering uncontrolled migration and security crises).

  • Structural authority (Susan Strange, States and Markets, 1988): U.S. global economic power expands through U.S.-passport-holding MNC executives subject to domestic legal subpoenas and national emergency commands.

• Military Proliferation Trends:

  • Arms industry diffusion: At least $12$ Third World states maintain indigenous arms export industries, eliminating sole-supplier leverage (technical assistance, spare parts).

  • Chemical and missile capabilities: Approximately $20$ countries possess chemical weapons capabilities; an estimated $15$ Third World nations will produce domestic ballistic missiles by the year 2000.

  • Nuclear proliferation trajectory: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT, 1968) recognized $5$ nuclear states; non-signatories/de-facto nuclear states grew to include India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa, with Argentina and Brazil developing capabilities.

• Cultural Proliferation Metrics and Telecommunications:

  • UNESCO media exports: The United States exports $7\times$ more television programming than the second-largest exporter (Great Britain).

  • Global cinema dominance: U.S. films account for $6\%\text{--}7\%$ of global feature film production but occupy $50\%$ of total worldwide theater screen time.

  • Information supremacy: In 1981, the U.S. originated $80\%$ of worldwide satellite data processing and transmission; English serves as the global economic lingua franca.

  • High-resolution intelligence assets: Strategic military power centers on continuous space-based photographic and electronic surveillance; commercial low-resolution systems (e.g., French SPOT) lag behind U.S. high-resolution capabilities.

  • Soft power squandering: High-level diplomatic delegation sent by President George Bush to Beijing following the June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown severely damaged U.S. soft power among pro-democracy Chinese citizens.

Mechanics of Collective Action, Morality, & The Commons

• Mathematical Impossibility of Dual Maximization:

  • Refutation of Jeremy Bentham's "the greatest good for the greatest number": In a finite world, a mathematical function cannot simultaneously maximize two independent variables (population size $P$ vs. per-capita utility/goods $G$).

• Psychological Mechanics and the Failure of Conscience:

  • Gregory Bateson's "double bind": Appealing to individual conscience creates a self-destructive psychological trap—damned if you exploit (public condemnation) vs. damned if you self-restrain (quietly mocked as a sucker while unscrupulously aggressive actors deplete the commons).

  • Pathology of guilt: Cites Paul Goodman (Drawing the Line, p. 18) asserting guilt generates anxiety rather than intelligent policy or compassion; Alex Comfort (The Anxiety Makers, p. 19) detailing two centuries of Western educational "Dark Ages of Eros" driven by guilt-inducing moral enforcement.

  • Charles Frankel's definition of responsibility (p. 20): Responsibility is not a verbal appeal or guilt trip ("getting something for nothing"), but the explicit product of "definite social arrangements" backed by enforceable social sanctions.

• Policy Instruments of Mutual Coercion:

  • Absolute prohibition vs. biased options: Bank robbery is prevented by absolute prohibition; municipal traffic and parking commons are governed by "temperance through coercion"—parking meters, timed limits, and parking fines that alter decision trees without outright prohibitions.

  • Unjust legal structures vs. total ruin: Private property and legal inheritance are genetically unjust (genetic recombination breaks "like father, like son," allowing trust funds to protect incompetent heirs), yet legal property rights are maintained because total ruin under an unregulated commons is far worse.

  • Kingsley Davis (p. 21) on status quo double standards: Opponents of social reform demand unanimous consent or a flawless policy, falsely assuming the status quo carries no ongoing costs or that inaction is neutral.

  • Philosophical framing (Friedrich Hegel): "Freedom is the recognition of necessity." True freedom requires recognizing when unrestricted individual liberties (such as unlimited reproduction in a welfare state) destroy shared resources, thereby accepting mutual legal coercion.