IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/intorg/v32y1978i01p1-12_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Introduction to the special issue of International Organization on dependence and dependency in the global system

Author

Listed:
  • Caporaso, James A.

Abstract

When the idea for this special number of International Organization first took shape, the theme was a rather general one, “asymmetric international relations.” I had hoped to encourage contributions from the areas of small state and client state behavior, dominance and dependence, imperialism, and great power—small power behavior. While all of these phenomena are tied together by a shared asymmetric property, this is a “bland common denominator” on which to launch a collection of articles. As the enterprise evolved, we decided to develop a clearer focus on dependence and dependency. It became clear that there were two different sets of theoretical concerns before us which were sometimes labeled identically and often treated indiscriminately for analytical purposes. We drew the distinction between dependence as external reliance on other actors and dependency as the process of incorporation of less developed countries (LDCs) into the global capitalist system and the “structural distortions” resulting therefrom. There are similarities between these two approaches. Both have a predominant focus on relational inequalities among actors and both are equally interested in the vulnerabilities of members of the global system resulting from these unequal relations. However, there are important differences too. In addition to basic theoretical differences, there are equally fundamental gaps in the supportive methodologies. The dependence orientation seeks to probe and explore the symmetries and asymmetries among nation-states. This approach most often proceeds from a liberal paradigm which focuses on individual actors and their goals and which sees power in decisional terms. The individual actors are usually internally unified states which confront the external environment as homogeneous units. With the nation-state as the basic unit of analysis, analysis of dependent relations can be carried out on any combination of states, from dyads up to larger groupings. The fact that dependence is a term which can be meaningfully discussed at the dyadic level allows one the luxury of dealing with large numbers of observations. Thus, dependence theory is easily linked to statistical modes of analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Caporaso, James A., 1978. "Introduction to the special issue of International Organization on dependence and dependency in the global system," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-12, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:32:y:1978:i:01:p:1-12_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020818300003830/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steve Chan & Cal Clark & David R. Davis, 1990. "State Entrepreneurship, Foreign Investment, Export Expansion, and Economic Growth," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(1), pages 102-129, March.
    2. Pustovitovskij, Andrej & Kremer, Jan-Frederik, 2011. "Structural Power and International Relations Analysis: "Fill your basket, get your preferences"," IEE Working Papers 191, Ruhr University Bochum, Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:32:y:1978:i:01:p:1-12_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ino .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.