Caporaso-DependenceDependencyPower-1978

Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System: A Structural and Behavioral
Analysis
Author(s): James A. Caporaso
Source: International Organization , Winter, 1978, Vol. 32, No. 1, Dependence and
Dependency in the Global System (Winter, 1978), pp. 13-43
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706193
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706193?seq=1&cid=pdf-
reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
, The MIT Press , Cambridge University Press and University of Wisconsin Press are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Organization
This content downloaded from

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dependence, dependency, and power in
the global system: a structural and
behavioral analysis
James A. Caporaso
Although there is already a huge literature on dependence in international relations, many

fundamental conceptual issues remain unresolved. Is the pattern of dependence of advanced
industrial states on one another different in kind or only in degree from the dependence of
peripheral capitalist societies on other members of the global system? What are the essential
components of dependence that one must identify before constructing an adequate measure of
it? What is the relationship between dependence and power? Since the answer to the first
question is that the two patterns of dependence differ in kind, the first order of business is to
provide the grounds for this distinction. Dependence is the pattern of external reliance of
well-integrated nation-states on one another while dependency, which is closer to the depen-
dencia tradition, involves a more complex set of relations centering on the incorporation of
less developed, less homogeneous societies into the global division of labor. The conceptual
components of dependence are the size of one's reliance on another, the importance attached
to the goods involved, and the availability of these goods (or substitutes) from different
sources. The components of dependency are the magnitude of foreign supply of important
factors of production (technology, capital), limited developmental choices, and domestic
"distortion" measures. Finally, the concept of dependence is most easily integrated into
bargaining analyses while dependency is more fruitfully applied to analyses of the structure of
relations among societies.
Introduction
The last decade has witnessed an acute revival of interest in questions of

dependence and interdependence, asymmetrical relations among nations, center-
periphery relations, and imperialism. Interest and scholarly debate have progressed
beyond the Latin American countries, where the majority of earlier contributions
were made, and now includes important contributions from Scandinavia, Western

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
14 International Organization
Europe (particularly France and West Germany), and the United States.' The scope
of the debate has been enlarged in other ways too. From the problem of "dependent,
non-autonomous development" stressed by Latin American scholars,2 the current
contributions range in interest from small-state difficulties in autonomously achiev-
ing national goals to interdependence and dependence of advanced industrial
economies.3 The focus has shifted from one of exclusive preoccupation with
'Some of the important works from these areas include: Johan Galtung, "A Structural Theory of
Imperialism," Journal of Peace Research (1971); Samir Amin, L'Accumulation a l'echelle mondiale
capitaliste (Paris, 1972); Henry Bernstein, ed., Underdevelopment and Development: The Third World
Today (Baltimore, Md.: Penquin Books, Inc., 1972); Steven Rosen and James Kurth, eds., Testing the
Theory of Economic Imperialism (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1974); Christian Palloix,
L'Economie mondiale capitaliste (Paris, 1972); Benjamin J. Cohen, The Question of Imperialism: The
Political Economy of Dominance and Dependence (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Arghiri Emmanuel,
Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade (New York and London: Monthly Review Press,
1972); Julio Cotler and Richard R. Fagen, eds., Latin America and the United States: The Changing
Political Realities (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974); Dieter Senghaas, ed., Imperialis-
mus und Strukturelle Gewalt: Analysen uber abhangige Reproduktion (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1972); and Dieter Senghaas, ed., Peripherer Kapitalismus: Analysen uber Abhdngigkeit und
Unterentwicklung (Frankfurt, Germany, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974).
2Examples of Latin American literature in English, French, and German sources are: C. Furtado,
"Elements of a Theory of Underdevelopment-the Underdeveloped Structures," in Bernstein, ed.,
Underdevelopment and Development; Theotonio Dos Santos, "The Crisis of Development Theory and
the Problem of Dependence in Latin America," also in Bernstein, ed.; Dos Santos, "The Structure of
Dependence," The American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings of the Eighty-Second Annual
Meeting of the American Economic Association, Vol. 60, No. 2 (May 1970); Andre G. Frank, Develop-
ment and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968); Fernando
Henrique Cardoso, "Dependence and Underdevelopment in Latin America," New Left Review (July-
August 1972); Cardoso, "Associated-Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications,"
in Alfred Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies and Futures (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1973); Cardoso, "Les Obstacles Structurel et Institutionnels au Developpement,"
Sociologie Et Societas Vol. 2, No. 2 (November 1970); Cardoso, "Biirgerliche Hegemonie und
Wirschaftliche Unabhangigkeit: Strukturelle Wurzeln Der Politischen Krise Brasiliens," in Celso Fur-
tado, ed., Brasilien Heute (Frankfurt, Germany: Atheneum Verlag, 1971); Osvaldo Sunkel "Transna-
tional Capitalism and National Disintegration in Latin America," Social and Economic Studies Vol. 22,
No. 1 (March 1973); Sunkel, "National Development Policy and External Dependence in Latin
America," Journal of Development Studies (London, October 1969); Sunkel, "Big Business and De-
pendencia," Foreign Affairs Vol. 50, No. 3 (April 1972); Sunkel, "Dependence and Structural
Heterogeneity," Institute for Development Studies, Sussex, mimeo, (no date). There are also a number
of articles and books which appear only in Spanish to the best of my knowledge. Despite the fact that
some of these works are acknowledged as important contributions, they were not taken into account here
(because of the language barrier). Among these are Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependencia
Y Desarrollo En America Latina (Mexico, Siglo Veintiuno editores sa, 1971, third edition); Guillermo
O'Donnell and Delfina Linck, Dependence Y Autonomia (Buenes Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu editores,
1973). Caribbean political scientists and economists have also made important contributions. For an
introduction to these, see the various selections in the special issue of Social and Economic Studies Vol.
22, No. 1 (March 1973), especially the contributions by Brewster and Girvan.
3A classic in the field of foreign economic policy, insofar as it lucidly illustrates the linkages between
national goals and the structure of a state's international trade, is Albert 0. Hirschman's National Power
and Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1945); more recent
contributions include Edward L. Morse, "The Politics of Inverdependence," International Organization
Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring 1969); Richard N. Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence: Economic Policy
in the Atlantic Community (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968); Oran R. Young, "Interdepen-
dencies in World Politics," International Journal Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn 1969); Kenneth N. Waltz,
"The Myth of National Interdependence," in Charles P. Kindleberger, ed., The International Corpora-

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Dependence and dependency in the global system 15
North-South problems to a much more varied inquiry in which North-South rela-

tions are supplemented by an examination of relations among industrialized coun-
tries, among less developed countries, and among producer organizations such as
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and regional actors
such as the European Community (EC) or the Andean Common Market (ANCOM).
Nor has the literature on dependence and interdependence been limited to applica-
tions in the field of international relations. Working within an exchange theoretical
framework, psychologists have made important contributions to our understanding
of the psychological bases of dependent relations while scholars from sociology and
organizational theory have enhanced our knowledge of the social structuring of
dependent relations.'
The purpose of this article is to review the relevant literature concerning
dependence and dependency (terms which I will subsequently define), to propose a
uniform set of definitions for research, to outline a conceptual framework for the
study of dependence and dependency, and to suggest the applicability of such a
framework for the study of international and transnational politics and economics. I
also hope to show that there are two fundamentally different, though latent par-
adigms in the literature and that failure to spell out the assumptions, methodologies,
and empirical claims of the two paradigms has resulted in serious misunderstandings
among scholars. Failure to comprehend these paradigmatic differences has also led
to intense disagreements over what constitutes a "test" of dependence theory.
As is so often the case, the renewed scholarly interest in dependency and
interdependence mirrors the increased importance of these processes-or at least an
increased awareness of them-in the contemporary world. A cursory review of the
tion: A Symposium (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1970); and Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye,
"World Politics and the International Economic System," in C. Fred Bergsten, ed., The Future of the
International Economic Order: An Agenda for Research (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1973).
Also see Roger D. Hansen, "The Crisis of Interdependence: Where Do We Go From Here?" in U.S. and
World Development: Agenda for Action 1976 by Roger D. Hansen and the staff of the Overseas
Development Council (New York: Praeger Publishers Inc., 1976); Denis Goulet, "World Interdepen-
dence: Verbal Smokescreen or New Ethic?" Overseas Development Council development paper 21
(March 1976); finally, it may be important to note the frequency with which the theme of interdepen-
dence appears in the Department of State document United States Foreign Policy: An Overview (Was-
hington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1976).
4For examples of psychological and socio-psychological contributions see Kenneth J. Gergen, The
Psychology of Behavior Exchange (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1969); Richard M.
Emerson, "Power-Dependence Relations," American Sociological Review Vol. 27, No. 1 (February
1962); and Richard M. Emerson, "Operant Psychology and Exchange Theory," in Robert L. Burgess
and Don Bushell Jr., eds., Behavioral Sociology: The Experimental Analysis of Social Processes (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1969). For examples from sociology in which dependence is inter-
preted within a broader context of sociological theory, see Peter M. Blau, Exchange and Power in Social
Life (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964) and Thomas Burns, "A Structural Theory of Social
Exchange," Sartryck Ur Acta Vol. 3 (1973). For contributions from organizational theory, see Arnold
S. Tannenbaum, "Control in Organizations," Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. 7, No. 2 (Sep-
tember 1962); Michael Aiken and Jerald Hage, "Organizational Interdependence and Intraorganizational
Structure," American Sociological Review Vol. 33 (1968); and David Jacobs, "Dependence and Vul-
nerability: An Exchange Approach to the Control of Organizations," Administrative Science Quarterly
Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1974).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
last decade and a half brings to mind a Declaration of Interdependence on July 4,

1962,5 a Project Independence (November 1974), and a statement by Daniel P.
Moynihan, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, that "the
concept of interdependence has become perhaps the main element of the new
consciousness of a world society. "6 And against a more permanent background of
complaints by less developed countries (LDCs) and small states that they are depen-
dent on the economic and political systems of the larger, industrially advanced
states, is silhouetted a pattern of dependence of these larger states themselves: the
dependence of the United States, Japan, and Western Europe on the supply of oil
from OPEC countries; the dependence of Canada on its powerful neighbor to the
South, which motivated a visit in the Fall of 1974 of Federal Prime Minister
Trudeau first to Paris and then to the EC in Brussels.7
The contemporary discussion of dependency and interdependence recalls some
of the fundamental problems of political organizations in this century. In a remark-
ably prescient book written in 1941, E.H. Carr foresaw the future dilemma of the
international system as one of striking a balance between self-determination and
political independence on the one hand, and the economic, technological, and
military dependence of these sovereign units on the other.8 The trend toward the
creation of small and politically sovereign units, set in motion by the peace settle-
ment of World War I, continues to the present day. A recent review article on
"small states" notes that membership of the United Nations includes states such as
the Maldive Islands (119,000) and Qatar (180,000).9 While the drafters of the
post-World War I settlement were aware of the dangers of unbridled military power
and sought to check this with a collective security scheme, they were unresponsive
to an equally serious problem, i.e., that "the self-determination of small nations
was incompatible with unbridled economic power and complete economic inter-
dependence. "10
Carr predicted that the tension created by the simultaneous processes of politi-
cal self-determination and growing economic interdependence would be resolved by
the bifurcation of political and economic organization. The dismantling of the
colonial empires and the demand for national independence assured the creation of
more sovereign political units just as the lack of self-sufficiency and presence of
technological interdependence demanded the creation of multinational economic
blocs. The European Economic Community (EEC), Council of Mutual Economic
Assistance (COMECON), Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), Cen-
"'The Goal of an Atlantic Partnership," address by President John F. Kennedy at Independence Hall on
July 4, 1962, in Department of State Bulletin Vol. 47, No. 1204 (July 23, 1962).
6Daniel P. Moynihan, "The United States in Opposition," Commentary Vol. 59, No. 3 (March 1975).
7"Le Canada 'far West' de I' Europe?" La Suisse, (October 22, 1974): 1-2.
8E.H. Carr, The Future of Nations: Independence or Interdependence (London, England: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1941).
9Peter R. Baehr, "Small States: A Tool for Analysis?", World Politics Vol. 27, No. 3 (April 1975):
458.
10Carr, The Future of Nations, p. 27.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
tral American Common Market (CACM), and the East African Common Market
(EACM) are just a few examples of the push toward larger economic units.
These two historical forces, one pushing toward more comprehensive interna-
tional organization and the other toward smaller, sovereign political units, were
bound to raise a dilemma for states. How much global involvement should a state
foster and how much vulnerability and loss of autonomy is a state willing to suffer?
Historically, this raises the possibility of pursuit of an isolationist or autarkic foreign
policy, a policy which sacrifices the rewards of involvement in favor of the de-
creased vulnerabilities of national isolation. Though the costs of autarky are without
doubt high, that they are not prohibitively so is confirmed by the Peoples' Republics
of China and Albania today. Enver Hoxha, the First Secretary of the Communist
Party of Albania, recently said: "The policy of our country is not the policy of those
states with a hundred flags in their pockets. Our People's Republic does not lower
its flag either before blackmail and terror, before the ruble or the dollar.""
Such a militant autonomy does indeed entail high costs, at least as judged by a
Western observer: no private cars, travel by Chinese-made jeeps, oxcarts, and
donkeys.'2 But it is a viable strategy and has been an option historically, particular
for states which might incur high costs through involvement. Rousseau's proposal
for an isolated Corsica was premised on the fact that Corsica was a small island
continually subject to the misgoverance and exploitation of the Italian city-state of
Genoa and periodic raids by the Barbarians.'3 The two courses of action open to
Corsica, self-protection and the formation of a protective alliance, were rejected by
Rousseau. Self-defense was rejected because the costs for a small country to bear
arms against a great maritime power were too great. A protective alliance was
rejected because of Rousseau's doubts about unequal links that characterized al-
liances between unequals: "The alliances, treaties,... everything that binds the
weak to the strong, but never ties the strong to the weak."''I With these two option
exhausted, Rousseau gave his famous advice to Corsica: "Thus, leave negotiations
to the Powers, and rely only upon yourselves."'15
For most countries, however, the advantages of international involvement and
the sheer impossibility of insulating themselves from the vicissitudes of interna-
tional politics make autarky an unattractive strategy. For the great majority of
countries, then, the costs must be continually weighed against the gains.
""Xenophobic Albania Not Likely to Change," New York Times, Section IV (May 18, 1975), p. 3.
12"Xenophobic Albania Not Likely to Change," p. 3. For a more extensive and scholarly analys
Albania's international position, see William E. Griffith, Albania and vhe Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge,
Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1963). Griffith's analysis pays special attention to diplomatic factors in the Soviet
Union and the Balkans, particularly Soviet and Yugoslav attempts to absorb Albania into Yugoslavia.
13Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Projet De Constitution Pour la Corse," in The Political Writings of Jean
Jacques Rousseau, Vol. II, Introduction and notes by C.E. Vaughn (Cambridge, England: University
Press, 1915), p. 308.
4Rousseau, "Projet Pour La Corse," p. 308.
15Ibid.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Some preliminaries: definitions and distinctions
One of the difficulties of constructing a conceptual framework for the study of

dependence16 is that numerous definitions of this concept exist (at least implicitly),
many with radically different implications for theory. Indeed, one of my assump-
tions in arguing for the distinctions offered below is that the generic term "depen-
dence" serves little useful analytic purpose. From the literature on dependence, one
can abstract two predominant usages: dependency as the absence of actor autonomy
and dependence as a highly asymmetric form of interdependence. With respect to
the former usage, one frequently hears of dependency as reflecting non-autonomous
developmental possibilities (especially in the Latin American literature), as the lack
of true independence from foreign or transnational influences, or as the presence of
a series of related domestic, external, and transnational characteristics. These
domestic and transnational features are sometimes referred to as "structural distor-
tions," a term referring to the numerous ways that the local economy is structured to
meet the needs of the foreign sector.
Thus the lack of integration of various parts of the domestic economy due to
the strong linkages between portions of the economy and foreign economies, the
marginal status of displaced domestic groups, the growing gap between elites and
masses in the dependent country, are all examples of such distortions. When depen-
dence (what we call dependency) is used in this sense, the meaning is clearly one
that is distant from our more conventional usage of that term in which dependence is
taken to signal some external form of reliance. Although additional complications
could be introduced, for now we rest with dependency as involving the absence of
autonomy, particularly, but not solely, with respect to development goals.
However, we often hear the term dependence used in a different way, as an
imbalance in the relationship between two actors. In this definition, the opposite of
dependence is interdependence-not autonomy. While autonomy rests on the idea
of self-control, interdependence rests on the notion of mutual control. While the
logical polar extremes of dependency are complete independence from unwanted
causal influences (perhaps entailing policies of isolationism and autarky) and com-
plete external control, the polar extremes of dependence are absolute asymmetric
interdependence (A needs nothing from B, while B depends on A for fulfillment of
all its needs) and the opposite asymmetry where B needs nothing from A but
supplies all of A's needs. These concepts are different in other respects also.
Dependence as asymmetric interdependence is immediately a dyadic concept and a
".net" concept, i.e., it is measured by looking at the differential between A's
reliance on B and B's reliance on A. The concept of dependency, however, requires
that we look at a unit in relation to all external influences or, as a variant of this, the
most important external influences. There is rarely if ever an attempt to identify the
16At this point in the paper, I am using the term "dependence" in a generic sense, to refer to both
dependence (a shorthand for dependence-interdependence) and dependency (a shorthand for
dependence-autonomy). After these initial distinctions are made, I will limit myself to the specific use o
dependence.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
reciprocal dependencies of relevant external actors on the dependent country. Rat-

her, these dependencies are presumed to be so small as to justify treating them as
non-existent.
Let me try to summarize up to this point. I have argued that the general term
"dependence" must give way to more discriminating concepts in order to serve as a
useful analytic tool. On the one hand, we use the term "dependence" in the
familiar, common sense manner to connote reliance on others. In this sense any
country may be dependent on any other, for example, through trade, technology
transfer, or cultural relations. When the exchanges, flows, and transfers bringing
about the provision of needs are roughly symmetric, we speak of interdependence.
On the other hand, the concept of dependency has no such common sense counter-
part, nor can it be reduced to one simple dimension. Indeed, dependency can only
be understood (i.e., its original and intended meaning is preserved) only within a
certain body of historical, political, and sociological thought. This complicates
things immensely. I am not making an argument about credentials, that only those
who have written about dependency and contributed to the dependencia literature in
Latin America can understand the dependency argument; still less am I advocating a
"group solipsist" position according to which only those who share the
phenomenological world of Latin Americans, or more broadly, the less developed
countries, can comprehend this species of thought. What I am saying is that, should
one want to use the concept of dependency and be reasonably faithful to the mean-
ing of those scholars who in a sense invented and contributed most to this line of
thought, then one has to respect the complexity in that thought.
There are several practical implications of the foregoing argument. The first is
that it is impossible to reduce dependency to a single, unidimensional concept.
Perhaps in its most elementary version, dependency can be expressed as a syndrome
of related concepts (e.g., external penetration, ties between local and foreign capi-
tal, structural integration or disintegration of various parts of the economy).17 A
second implication of at least one interpretation of the dependency literature is that
dependency is not a concept in a theory at all but a synoptic term for a body of
theory. Duvall's contribution to this volume presents this as one viable interpreta-
tion of "dependency theory." Similarly Lall provides grounds for such an interpre-
tation:
In the usage of the dependencia school, on the other hand, 'dependence' is

meant to describe certain characteristics (economic as well as social and politi-
cal) of the economy as a whole and is intended to trace certain processes which
are causally linked to its underdevelopment and which are expected to ad-
versely affect its development in the future."8
17The tendency within American sociology and political science, at least those portions affected by an
empiricist orientation, would be to "disaggregate" the concept of dependency and treat each of these
sub-concepts individually, i.e., measure each separately and explore the empirical relations between each
component and theoretically related variables.
18Sanjaya Lall, "Is 'Dependence' a Useful Concept in Analysing Underdevelopment?" World De-
velopment Vols. 3, 11, and 12 (1975).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Here we see that dependency is the name for a set of descriptive characteristics
as well as a set of causal connections. If the identification of the causal processes
linked to underdevelopment is logically entailed by the meaning of dependency,
then the link between dependency and development is not empirically controversial,
as Lall himself notes. This orientation toward dependency theory has strong though
almost universally unacknowledged consequences for evaluating theory. Depen-
dency theory now becomes an analytic device containing numerous concepts where
the connections among many of the important concepts are logically, rather than
empirically, supplied. The task now becomes one of interpretation of the theory by
application to concrete cases rather than an evaluation of a corrigible body of
propositions.
The concepts of dependence and dependency, while possessing similarities at
the most general level, are different in fundamental respects. They have different
intellectual ancestries, rest on different units of analysis, suggest different mea-
surement strategies, and are connected to different theoretical statements. They are,
in short, best dealt with separately.
Possible complications of definition
Two immediate problems are raised by the two definitions of dependence

(autonomy-dependency and dependence-interdependence). The first question is
whether, for purposes of analysis, we should treat dependence and dependency as
two distinct concepts or whether we should create a composite concept. The fact
that they have been defined separately does not rule out a composite concept.
Autonomy and interdependence are indeed different in several ways, one of them
being that they suggest different actor-sets. Dependency-autonomy suggests a unit-
environment focus (i.e., an actor viewed in relation to its total external environ-
ment) while interdependence-dependence has a dyadic (actor to actor) focus. Both
foci are important in a complete assessment of dependence.
The second complication centers on the question of whether dependence is an
issue-specific concept or a multi-issue "net" property. As Alker put it, "we want to
know how factorable interdependence issues really are," 19 i.e., to what extent can
and should the interdependencies among nations be expressed sector by sector or
conversely, to what extent can they be aggregated across sectors and expressed as
composite interdependencies? In other words, what is the feasibility and desirability
of aggregation vs. decomposition of sectoral interdependencies? Should various
dependencies be added and "netted out" at the national level? Must we speak of
dependencies for trade and if so, can we treat trade relations in the aggregate or must
we deal with them sector by sector? Similarly, must we identify dependencies
separately for capital investment, diplomatic representation, the supply and pur-
chase of resources, or is a summary index possible?
Our uncertainty about a "net" figure is in part an uncertainty about the facts.
19Hayward R. Alker Jr. with Nazli Coucri, Analyzing Global Interdependence, Vol. 3, Methodological
Perspectives and Research Implications (Center for International Studies, M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass.:
1974), p. 54.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Does, for example, the existence of a gross trade asymmetry between two countries
produce a figure which is meaningful to the governments of those two countries? To
answer the question in the negative is to say that these gross asymmetries are not
relevant for the conduct of foreign economic policy insofar as such policy is formu-
lated and carried out by the two governments.
Structural conditions for existence of dependence
It was a principle of mercantilism that to increase its power and decrease its
vulnerability, a state should minimize the ratio of foreign transactions to domestic
economic activity and distribute its foreign transactions as uniformly as possible
over as many partners as possible. Concentration of foreign trade, either as a source
of supply or as a market outlet, was to be avoided since it created nodes of depen-
dency and influence.
Together with these insights suggested by political economy, work currently
being done in social psychology and organization theory enables us to piece together
a comprehensive picture of the structural indicators of dependence. One of the first
articles to isolate the components of dependence was by Richard Emerson who
defined the dependence of A on B (Dab) as a direct function of the magnitude of A's
motivational investment in goods controlled by B and inversely related to the
opportunity to achieve these goals outside the A-B relationship.20 Within this
framework, power is then defined as "the amount of resistance on the part of B
which can be potentially overcome by A,' '21 so that Dab = Pba.
While this definition offers a useful starting point, it is inadequate on several
grounds. First, it sets power equal to the amount of resistance that can be overcome
in a relationship, ignoring the fact that asymmetric relations may be consensual and
based on legitimacy.22 Second, this formulation makes a definitional identity out of
what is one of the central concerns here, specifically, the relationship between
dependence and power (with dependence defined structurally and power defined in
behavioral terms). Third, Emerson's formulation either leaves out or lumps together
several factors best treated as conceptually independent, e.g., the substitutability of
the good (that which is desired) and the market structure characteristic of the
alternative suppliers are lumped together while information concerning B's recip-
rocal dependent relations on A is left out.
A full specification of the structural conditions for the existence of dependence
(asymmetric interdependence) would include: (1) the magnitude of A's interest in or
desire for a good (x); (2) the extent of control of x by another actor B; and (3) the
ability of A to substitute for x or for B. The first condition is meant to discriminate
between goods that are important and those that are clearly luxuries, e.g., oil versus
canned pears or perfume. It is intended to tap the intensity of the demand for a
particular good. The second condition attempts to get at the extent to which any
particular actor supplies a good to another. A country which imports one percent of
20Emerson, "Power-Dependence Relations," p. 32.

21Ibid.
22See the cogent argument by David Jacobs, "Dependency and Vulnerability," pp. 45-59.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
its oil is less dependent than a country that imports fifty percent. The third condi-
tion, substitutability, tries to capture the transformation cost in going from a present
supply relationship to a new one. Substitutability, as conceptualized here, includes
the substitution costs incurred when switching suppliers as well as the costs of doing
without a good. It also includes the total costs involved in substituting one commod-
ity for another, i.e., dollar cost as well as transformation or dislocation cost. It is not
impossible that any one rupture of relationships may involve all three responses at
once. In addition, since dependence is asymmetrical interdependence, it follows
that stopping with these three pieces of information provides only half of the story.
We still need similar measures for B's dependence on A. The signed difference
between these two sets of structural conditions will provide a measure of depen-
dence. To summarize this measure in general terms, one actor (A) will be dependent
on another (B) to the extent that A relies on B for large quantities (expressed as
proportions of total consumption) of important goods which can't be easily replaced
at sufferable costs while B acquires small quantities of unimportant goods from A
which it can easily replace.
From the above it should be clear that dependence is a structural phenomenon
in two senses. First, a dependent relation is identified by a relatively enduring, if not
fixed, pattern of interactions. These enduring interaction patterns (structures) have
asymmetrical properties. Second, what is important in the assessment of A's depen-
dence on B is not only the magnitudes of their respective involvements but also the
shape or form of the distribution of their interactions. These distributional parame-
ters (e.g., concentration scores for suppliers of a particular good) which go beyond
individualistic information represent the cost-sensitive choices open to an actor.
Conditions for existence of dependency
The concept of dependence has a straightforward interpretation, "net reliance

on others." As such, the concept suggests three conceptually clear-cut, if oper-
ationally difficult, conditions for its existence: size of the reliance relationship,
importance of the good on which one relies, and ease, availability, and cost of the
replacement alternatives. Dependency is a much more complex concept, thus more
resistant to measurement suggestions. As with dependence, dependency calls for
both involvement and subordination. But what beyond this?
Perhaps a good place to start would be with several definitions of dependency
offered by dependency theorists. Curiously, however, the term is rarely explicitly
defined, though the words "dependent" and "dependency" are often invoked. No
doubt this is due partly to the fact that most of the dependency literature emerged as
part of an internal Latin American dialogue, or at best a Latin American-Caribbean
dialogue, where the meaning of the term was reasonably well understood. Perhaps it
was also due in part to the reluctance of dependency scholars to take the term
dependency out of its historical context and elevate it to the status of an abstract
concept. Indeed, as I will try to show, it may be impossible to reduce "depen-
dency" to a concept at all. Rather the word may function as a synoptic label for a
body of theory. Recall the earlier definition provided by Dos Santos:

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
By dependence we mean a situation in which the economy of certain countries

is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which
the former is subjected. The relation of interdependence between two or more
economies, and between these and world trade, assumes the form of depen-
dence when some countries (the dominant ones) can expand and be self-
sustaining, while other countries (the dependent ones) can do this only as a
reflection of that expansion, which can have either a positive or a negative
effect on their immediate development.23
Even in this simple definition, dependency is defined as a causal relationship, a

functional relationship among economies resulting in unequal autonomous devel-
opmental possibilities. Similarly, Havelock Brewster defines dependency as fol-
lows:
Economic dependence we may define as a lack of capacity to manipulate the

operative elements of an economic system. Such a situation is characterized by
an absence of interdependence between the economic functions of a system.
This lack of interdependence implies that the system has no internal dynamic
which would enable it to function as an independent, autonomous entity.24
Again, dependency is equated with a particular species of non-autonomy,

springing from the lack of interdependence of domestic economic sectors on the one
hand and their corresponding dependence on external economic activity on the
other. Dependency, then, is Janus-faced. It has an internal anatomy manifesting
itself in fragmentation and an external anatomy realized through its responsiveness
to foreign economic activity.
Compatible with these definitions is the one offered by Fernando H. Cardoso.
Cardoso most clearly expresses dependency as a "functional derangement" or
"functional incompleteness" of a national economy:
capitalist accumulation in dependent economies does not complete its cycle.

Lacking 'autonomous technology'-as vulgar parlance has it-and compelled
therefore to utilize imported technology, dependent capitalism is crippled....
It is crippled because it lacks a fully developed capital-goods sector. The
accumulation, expansion, and self-realization of local capital requires and
depends on a dynamic complement outside itself: it must insert itself into the
circuit of international capitalism.25
Dependency now becomes something more critical and more complex than a
simple reliance on others for provision of goods. The concept of reliance remains
critical but it is reliance on external (or, as we shall see, transnational) agencies for
completion of basic economic activities.
23Dos Santos, "The Structure of Dependence," p. 231.

24Havelock Brewster, "Economic Dependence: A Quantitative Interpretation," Social and Economic
Studies Vol. 22, No. 1 (March 1973): 91.
25Cardoso, "Associated-Dependent Development," p. 163.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
The central difficulty of incorporating these "distortions" or "deformations"

into the meaning of dependency is that one creates linguistic circularities out of
potentially empirical hypotheses. For example, the hypothesis that dependency
causes underdevelopment is placed on shaky grounds if dependency logically entails
some of the indicators suggested by distortions. These distortions themselves look
very much like underdeveloped, or undeveloped, structures: economic structures
with poor cohesion, lack of domestic integration among key productive and ex-
change sectors, etc. On the other hand, if one places these societal characteristics
outside the definition of dependency itself and focuses exclusively on the contact
points identifying the external reliances and sources of penetration, then depen-
dency looks very similar to dependence. Of course, the aggregation rules would still
be different. The concept of dependence has us look at external reliances separately,
actor by actor, while dependency requires us to aggregate all external reliances, or
at least all those that are capitalist, together. It is the confounding of these two
senses of dependence, one that appears in our ordinary language and one that is
more explicitly theory-laden, that Lall tries to deal with in his article "Is 'Depen-
dence' a Useful Concept in Analyzing Development?"26
An additional problem is incurred in trying to understand dependency. The
units of analysis are no longer ordinary nation-states interacting with and attempting
to influence one another. Classes, social-economic groups, and political forces
become the key actors, and more importantly, their activities, patterns of influence
and potential allies do not always move inside the same national orbits. Thus we are
encouraged to think not only of "internal" and "external" but also of "transna-
tional" alliances between foreign and domestic groups.27 This transnational cate-
gory is no simple combination of domestic and foreign forces, easily decomposable
for purposes of analysis. On the contrary, some of the fusions are so complete that
the parts lose their separate identities. For Cardoso and Faletto, the external system
is real enough by itself but it exacts its greatest leverage when "the system of
domination reappears as an 'internal' force, through the social practices of local
groups and classes which try to enforce foreign interests. 9 928
Many present empirical studies of dependency, carried out in the spirit of
"testing dependency theory," employ different measures of dependency based on
the gross amount of foreign penetration or control. Robert Kaufman and his as-
sociates used a series of measures to test propositions derived from dependency
theory. Among these were "value of trade to largest trading partner," "value of
two leading exports," and "current foreign public and private investment per cap-
ita. "29 Chase-Dunn looked at "investment dependence per capita" and "debt de-
26Lall, "Is 'Dependence' a Useful Concept?"

27Cardoso, "Les Obstacles Structurels et Institutionnels au Developpement."
28Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America,
preface to the American edition, (no date), p. 11.
29Robert R. Kaufman, Harry I. Chernotsky, and Daniel S. Geller, "A Preliminary Test of the Theory of
Dependency," Comparative Politics Vol. 7, No. 3 (April 1975).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
pendence per capita." The former included all profits made by foreign direct in-
vestment in the host country while the latter measured the total "external public
debt. '30
What do these aggregate measures actually tell us? They may reflect the total
amount of reliance on all external actors, considered as a unit, or alternatively, on
the largest single actor. Implicit in the idea of a "largest single partner" is a weakly
defined version of restricted choice. To put it simply, as the concentration of an
activity on any particular partner goes up, one's choices decrease. However, it is
also important to note what these indicators do not measure. They neglect the role of
local (domestic and transnational) groups and the ways in which they are aligned
with external influences; they also ignore the opportunity cost of breaking a rela-
tionship with an actor. Thus our aggregate measure of dependency (which really
comes closer to a measure of dependence) may give us a rough picture of a coun-
try's total external reliances. However, it says nothing about the ease or difficulty
with which one can break any particular relationship and switch to a new one. In
other words, it says nothing about vulnerability. Granted that measures of cost-
sensitive substitution possibilities are hard to come by, some calculation of the
possibility and cost of alternatives is crucial. Thirdly, these measures tell us nothing
about the internal anatomy of dependency, i.e., the "distortions" in the local
economy which shape the "exclusive complementarities" with external actors.
Estimates of the magnitude of external penetration provide valuable informa-
tion but they are insufficient as far as providing a comprehensive picture of depen-
dency. Three separate pieces of information are crucial: external reliance (measured
as penetration); some measure of choice (measured as cost-sensitive alternatives
open to an actor); and some measure of the integrity of the domestic economic
processes or lack of such.
Each of these components of dependency provides valuable information but by
itself does not tell the whole story. A measure of external penetration just indicates
the foreign presence but does not distinguish a Switzerland, Canada, or England
from a Chile, Zambia, or Honduras. On the other hand, a measure of restricted
choice gets at the opportunities and constraints facing an actor but neglects to assess
the integrity of the unit involved as the chief actor in the choice analysis. Finally, if
one focuses only on the integrity, cohesiveness, and functional linkages among
parts of the unit in question, these provide little more than a study of national
integration.
To summarize, three sets of factors are important for dependency:
Magnitude of reliance
1. large share of needs supplied externally
2. large share of markets are foreign
3. large ratio of foreign to domestic capital, technology, production facilities, etc.
30Christopher Chase-Dunn, "The Effects of International Economic Dependence on Development and

Inequality: A Cross-National Study," American Sociological Review Vol. 40 (December 1975).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Choice-based measures
1. heavy reliance on one partner
2. high opportunity cost (reliance not easily shifted)
3. few opportunities for diversification, for allies, etc. (for "natural" and for
political reasons)
4. commodity concentration of exports and commodity concentration of total
domestic production.
Domestic distortion measures

1. lack of integration across economic sectors
2. lack of responsiveness of production structures to increased or decreased demand
3. responsiveness to externally generated demand.
The list under each factor could be expanded but there would be no point in
doing that here. What does seem important is that there are three fairly complex sets
of factors that are associated with dependency. To attempt to lump all three pro-
cesses into a single summary index, of unknown dimensionality, would be a mis-
take. Not only are the three sets of conditions sufficiently different; there is also
little suggestion from the dependency literature that the construction of a unitary
index is desirable.
Since the magnitude and choice measures are fairly well known, I will restrict
my comments here to the "domestic distortion" measures. There are two themes
which are central here: first, the absence of connectedness or integration among the
society's key sectors; second, a structural basis for the incompleteness of economic
processes (capital accumulation, production, marketing, distribution, spending,
purchasing, etc.,) internally and hence, by implication, a dependence on external
actors for a full enactment of these processes.
In the non-Latin American literature, much less emphasis has been paid to
these distortions than to the assessment of external reliance, which is certainly one
of the reasons behind the dissatisfaction on Cardoso's part of the "consumption of
dependency theory in the U.S."'31 While some of Cardoso's reservations are more
deeply philosophical, and probably non-resolvable on this particular point, he is in
my opinion clearly correct concerning the absence of attention paid to the
structural-functional characteristics of domestic production and distribution.
Of course, measurement of domestic distortions is not an easy task. To the best
of my knowledge, there has been only a handful of attempts along these lines.
Proceeding first from a theoretical argument about dependency, Havelock Brewster
goes on to construct "a matrix of inter-relationships between the operative eco-
nomic functions of the system.... By functions we refer to the operative
mechanisms of the system (for example, production, saving, investment, consump-
tion, wages, profit, productivity, money, prices, imports, exports, interest rates,
etc.) rather than to the specific goods and services which constitute the transactions
3"Fernando Henrique Cardoso, "The Consumption of Dependency Theory," mimeo (1976).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
of the system."32 Brewster examines a selected set of these economic functions for
Trinidad and Tobago over several decades and finds that, almost without exception,
the coefficients representing relationships among the functions are insignificant.33
He then persuasively points out the implications of this kind of economic fragmenta-
tion for social planning and the control of the instruments of macroeconomic policy.
Prices cannot be kept down by operating on wages. Suppressing wage rise does
not lead to increased exports; indeed, wage acceleration seems to go along to
some extent with increased exports. Increased exports do not make for in-
creased employed; indeed, there is an inverse relation between the two. Effec-
tively, the level of employment cannot be manipulated by any of the recog-
nized functional relationships of orthodox economic practice.34
A more complicated and detailed version of the same matrix approach to the
examination of the domestic economic structure is provided by Osvaldo Sunkel.
Sunkel uses a matrix similar to the Leontieff input-output table. The matrix is
composed of three parts, one describing productive activity, a second representing
the distribution of income paid to entrepreneurs, owners of capital, employees,
workers, and government, and a third representing the ways in which earners spend
incomes.35 Sunkel adapts this input-output table to the special characteristics of the
less developed countries. Instead of defining the key sectors in terms of their
technological homogeneity, following Leontieff, he defines them in terms of de-
velopment levels and degree of foreign control. Each element of the matrix can then
be examined for each sector of the economy, e.g., the flows from foreign-controlled
sectors to other foreign-controlled sectors for mining, heavy industry, agriculture,
etc., or between foreign-controlled sectors and national sectors.
This matrix, though it poses strong requirements in terms of data availability,
and in spite of the fact (or perhaps because of it) that a sensible interpretation rests
on the prior existence of economic theory (in providing baselines in terms of which
functions should be related and which not), can be an extremely powerful analytic
device. It is a tool for assessing the heterogeneity of the economy (viewed as
balance-imbalance among various sectors) as well as the circulation of flows
throughout the system. Also, and importantly, this is a conceptual tool enabling on
to get at the "simultaneous process of transnational integration and national disin-
tegration in the productive structure of the underdeveloped economy....936
Merging dependency and dependence with the power literature
Up to this point I have tried to clarify the meaning of two terms often used to
express relational inequalities among actors and in so doing I have found it neces-
32Brewster, "Economic Dependence: A Quantitative Interpretation," p. 92.

33Ibid., p. 91.
34Ibid., p. 93.
350svaldo Sunkel, "Dependence and Structural Heterogeneity," p. 13.
36Sunkel, "Dependence and Structural Heterogeneity," p. 19.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
sary to distinguish between dependence and dependency. In this section I try to

relate these terms to more familiar concepts. However, given the different concep-
tualizations of these two aspects of relational inequality, there is no a priori reason
to expect them to relate in the same ways. In fact, dependence and dependency have
different theoretical consequences, though they may share similar antecedents.
Given the centrality of the concept of power within political science and
sociology, it is desirable to develop the linkages between dependence and power. In
doing so, I will argue that dependence occupies a critical transition role.
There are two primary links between dependence and power. The first link is
that structural asymmetries are a basis for power, i.e., these asymmetries provide
the resources to affect others by depriving them of the desired exchanged goods.
When one actor supplies another with large amounts of important goods which
cannot be easily replaced at tolerable costs, that actor is in a position to influence the
dependent actor. In other words, power springs from asymmetric interdependen-
cies. This is the view put forth by Keohane and Nye:
We suggest that a parsimonious way to conceptualize diverse sources of

power-and therefore to explain distributions of power-resources among actors
in world politics-is to regard power as deriving from patterns of asymmetrical
interdependence between actors in issue-areas in which they are involved with
one another.37
The authors then go on to assert that these patterns of interdependence can vary
along two dimensions, "intensity of relations and relative power of resources of
actors. '38 Presumably, intensity reflects both the relative magnitudes of the depen-
dencies in the total sectoral activity of each actor (e.g., the total amount of oil
supplied by B to A as a proportion of A's total oil consumption) as well as the
salience of oil in A's hierarchy of values. If two actors have an extremely low
propensity to interact with one another, their relations are not intense. On the other
hand, if they have a large magnitude of interaction involving the exchange of goods
that are unimportant (in the sense that the actors could either do without or substitute
for them without much cost), we would not characterize these relations as intense
either. This is the "importance" aspect of interactions. If we recall our earlier
definition of dependence (A's motivational investment in goods controlled by B),
we see that both A's desire for certain goods (which is variable) and the proportion
of these goods consumed by A which is controlled by B are important. The intensity
of involvement and the symmetry-asymmetry of involvement, joined together by
some rules of aggregation, are treated as structural sources of power.
To summarize up to this point, the first linkage between dependence and power
is that dependence rests on structural asymmetries which can with certain prob-
abilities be converted into decisional power. The second link is that dependence,
37Keohane and Nye, "World Politics and the International Economic System," p. 122.
38Ibid.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
quite apart from its consequences for manifest decisional power, is itself a form of
value-allocating process. Unlike most analyses of power, where the resources and
capabilities of actors are treated as inert and passive, the capabilities, structural
positions, and asymmetric dependent relations are themselves capable of leading to
certain distributions of values quite apart from the overt decisional process. For
example, one actor may exploit another's dependence on him for the purpose of
structuring a long-term relationship from which he benefits, such as the cheap
supply of natural resources or a terms of trade relationship which gives advantages
to one at the expense of the other. The structuring of unequal exchange relationships
is an example of value-allocation that arises purely from the operation of structural
relations. This is a kind of "structural power," if one wants to use that term, but it
must be recognized that it is quite a different phenomenon from decisional power.
The concept of dependence has clear theoretical implications for the analysis of
bargaining relations. Thought of as unequal interdependence, dependence sum-
marizes the numerous ways in which one actor relies on another. Thus it captures
the multiplicity of positive inducements (the carrot) and negative sanctions (the
stick) that one actor holds over another. It should now be clear that dependency
cannot be so easily related to the leverage that one actor has over another. This is so
for several reasons, the first of which is that the external environment is usually
aggregated in a dependency analysis. The dependent country is said to be dependent
on "other countries," "external classes," "the international capitalist system,"
etc. The locus of dependency of any one actor is not necessarily limited, in fact is
probably not limited, to any one country or group therein. Dependency is a condi-
tion which exists when the completion of a critical economic function rests on an
exclusive complementarity with portions of the external environment (or transna-
tional environment), portions that need not be located inside the boundaries of the
same territorial actor. This type of dependency is more systemic and hence its
empirical referents are somewhat vaguer though none the less real. However, the
generality of the concept and the fact that the "agents" of dependency can't be
located inside a homogeneous territorial unit makes for some problems in the
analysis of dependency. Thus, dependency scholars are seemingly vague when they
cast their blame on "the global capitalist system," strengthening the belief of those
who believe that dependency theory is nothing more than a superficial apology and
scapegoating for the real domestic sources of underdevelopment. But the answer to
the question "dependent on whom?" is necessarily more vague than for asymmetric
interdependence, for now the objects of dependency are more numerous, operate
from various control centers, are not necessarily territorially homogeneous, and are
not unified by a common political interest. The consequence of this inability to
locate precisely the object of dependency is a blurring of the battle lines for, at least
in so far as the exercise of power is concerned, it is not at all clear what the
advantages and liabilities flowing from dependency are. This is not to say that
dependency is unimportant but only that its consequences have been sought along
different theoretical lines, in particular, the impact of dependency on development
and underdevelopment.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Power in a schedule sense: the Harsanyi-Alker contribution
Up to this point I have simply indicated that the concept of dependence is one
of the bases of power. It is a resource that can with some probability be converted
into power. The difficulty, of course, is that we know so little about the mechanisms
guiding the transition from the bases of power to its actual use. In this section I will
argue that dependence has another important link to power and that in order to
understand this link, we must introduce Harsanyi's concept "the costs of power."
Harsanyi's work39 suggests that two important concepts have been left out of
our power calculations: the cost to A of influencing B and the opportunity cost to B
for failure to comply with A. By bringing these two concepts into the power
equation, Harsanyi has provided us with crucially relevant information about the
mechanisms underlying the conversion process between capabilities and power.
Harsanyi urges us to look at the opportunity costs of both parties:
the opportunity costs to A of attempting to influence B's behavior, i.e., the

opportunity costs of using his power over B (and of acquiring this power over
B in the first place if A does not yet possess the required power), which we
shall call the costs of A's power over B; and ... the opportunity costs to B of
refusing to do what A wants him to do, i.e., of refusing to yield to A's attempt
to influence his behavior. As these opportunity costs measure the strength of
B's incentives for yielding to A's influence we shall call them the strength of
A's power over B.40
Although these two factors are crucial components of all power calculations,
they had previously not been integrated into a unified power analysis. Yet without
information on the costs to A of securing B's compliance and the costs to B of
refusing to comply we can hardly begin to make successful predictions on the basis
of capabilities alone. By providing a broad cost-benefit framework within which to
make predictions about the conditions under which it is likely that capabilities will
be successfully used (given certain levels of resistance), Harsanyi has suggested a
conceptual bridge between capabilities (including dependence as an exchange capa-
bility) and actual power behavior.
Hayward Alker's "On Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense: Measuring
Power, Integration and Development'41 is a direct continuation of Harsanyi's
on power. Like Harsanyi, the value of Alker's article lies in the fact that he
preserves the idea of political capability as a "counterfactual possibility" while he
39 am referring primarily to John C. Harsanyi, "Measurement of Social Power, Opportunity Costs, and
the Theory of Two-Person Bargaining Games," in J. David Singer, ed., Human Behavior and Interna-
tional Politics (Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally & Co., 1965), pp. 378-85 and John C. Harsanyi, "Mea-
surement of Social Power, in n-Person Reciprocal Power Situations," in Roderick A. Bell, David
Edwards, and R. Harrison Wagner, eds., Political Power (New York: Free Press, 1969).
40Harsanyi, "Measurement of Social Power, Opportunity Costs," p. 380.
4'Alker, "Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense: Measuring Power, Integration and Development,"
in H.R. Alker, K.W. Deutsch, and A.H. Stoetzel, eds., Mathematical Approaches to Politics (San
Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1973), pp. 307-73.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
explores the transition to manifest power. He does this by further refining and
formalizing ideas implicit in Harsanyi's writings. Taking Harsanyi's idea of "power
in a schedule sense," he argues that we can "summarize power potentials in terms
of a schedule or graph or function linking opportunity costs to desirable perfor-
mance possibilities."42 To carry out this task of incorporating opportunity costs into
a full theory of power, it would first be necessary to assign utilities to A and B for all
of B's action possibilities as well as for A to assign cost coefficients to the use of
varying amounts of its own resources.43 In the simplest case (dichotomous and
unidimensional, i.e., compliance and non-compliance for a single issue), this would
involve a determination of the costs of compliance or non-compliance for A and B,
including the costs incurred by A's resource expenditures.
Thus, in the Harsanyi-Alker view power in a schedule sense is a kind of:
'production function' describing how a given individual can 'transform' dif-

ferent amounts of his resources . .. into social power of various dimensions [of
various strengths, scopes, amounts, and extensions]. The commonsense notion
of social power makes it an ability to achieve certain things-an ability that the
person concerned is free to use or to leave unused.44
The essential insight of the Harsanyi-Alker formulation is that it reinterprets

conventional "force-activation models" as being similar to production functions in
that the probability and amount of conversion of resource bases into decisional
(inputs into outputs) power is a generalized function of A's utility for various
actions of B and B's costs associated with not complying with those classes of
actions desired by A. Power now is not a series of observed measurement readings,
registered in quantities representing amount of power, scope, and extent. Rather it is
a generalized, hypothetical function linking A and B's preference structures with
various potential outcomes. Rather than resource bases and means of power leading
directly to power, we now have power as a generalized production function. (See
Table I.)
This approach leads to a much more adequate specification of a power model
in that it provides cost-sensitive information regarding the choices available to
actors. From the threatener's (A's) standpoint, the relevant cost information is the
differential between the expected cost of rewarding B (or leaving B alone) and the
expected cost of punishing B. For the threatened party (B), the relevant cost infor-
mation is provided by the expected difference between the costs of complying and
not complying. It should now be clear where the concept of dependence fits into the
overall picture. Dependence provides a direct measure of the costs associated with
breaking a relationship and substituting for it a new one. Thus, countries which are
highly vulnerable, in the sense of having few or no alternatives at tolerable costs,
will also be in a position where they can easily be influenced.
42Alker, "Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense," p. 308.

43Ibid., p. 311.
44Harsanyi, "Measurement of Social Power, Opportunity Costs," p. 232.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Table I Power as a generalized production function

Relating capabilities to the actual use of power
Coefficints Dimensions
representing of power
Bases of power (1) A's opportunity costs

(resources, capabilities for non-compliance
dependencies) (2) A's costs of using Scope
varying amounts of its
resources
Means of Power (3) B's opportunity costs
(instruments, skills, tactics) for non-compliance Amount
(4) B's costs of using
varying amounts of its Extent
resources
Applications: bargaining and structural relations in a transnational and

international context
What I have tried to do up to now is to develop and elaborate a framework

within which one can talk about both the bargaining (or behavioral) and structural
aspects of dependency. If this framework is to be effectively applied to analyzing
global political relations, it must be positioned inside an international and transna-
tional framework. Much of the voluminous literature on global relations can be
conveniently summarized as dealing either with concrete bargaining relations
among actors over clearly defined conflicts or the more permanent structural
relations (including the distribution of each's opportunities and constraints).
In this section45 I want to illustrate these two themes with selections from
the literature and suggest how dependence and dependency research can be usefully
integrated into the extant literature.
It has been a consistent element of my argument that a good measure of
dependence or dependency cannot limit itself to dyadic relations. Instead, the pa
tern of dependence must include information about the relevant opportunities and
constraints available to and impinging on an actor. Stated somewhat differently, in
dependence and dependency theory, portions of what is normally treated as the
context of an actor's behavior must be incorporated directly into measures of these
concepts.
Many such contextual or distributional properties have been developed within
economic theory. One distributional property is reflected in the market structure of a
country's exports, i.e., its export concentration. Here the elementary unit of obser-
vation is the dyad, which is relational, but the concept itself is assigned meaning by
a series of simple operations on these dyadic relations. Other systemic properties are
an actor's vulnerability to goods provided by a set of external actors, that vulnerabil-
451n the following section, I am indebted to the suggestions of Joseph Nye.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
ity being reflected in the actor's import concentration, its ability to substitute other
products for the goods in question and its ability to do without the goods entirely. An
actor's allies, both formal and informal, and its fragmentation or solidarity with
other members of the international system, are also important.
The above distinction between bargaining and structural levels somewhat par-
allels Johan Galtung's distinction between the liberal actor-oriented perspective and
the structural viewpoint. The liberal perspective focuses on individual actors,
analyzes political situations in terms of motivation and behavior, and tends to see
collectivities as simple aggregations of individuals. The structural viewpoint, how-
ever, views group properties differently: "According to the latter, the structure-
oriented perspective, any collectivity consists of social positions connected by in-
teraction relations and interaction patterns, together forming a structure."46
The structural asymmetries examined may apply to a broad range of variables,
including trade, investment, diplomatic representation, or inequalities in oppor-
tunities themselves (as in allies, products, sources of investment). These may take
the form of inequalities in capacity to open up sources of supply (either internally by
providing incentives to exploit resources or externally by force or by positive
incentives), of having resources to pursue a "divide-and-rule" strategy (as in offer-
ing OPEC members long-term rewards for defecting) or having the capacity to close
off such supply sources to other actors (through cartel creation). The amount of
solidarity-fragmentation in the system, the way in which it is organized, and how it
impinges on specific actors are crucial facts in any assessment of the opportunities
and constraints to which actors are subject.
These two considerations, structural and behavioral,47 are viewed as crucial to
the understanding of the asymmetries involved in the international and transnational
relationships. To focus exclusively on the concrete bargaining among actors and the
various ways in which actors effectively exert their wills over others is to ignore the
fact that the social structuring of agendas may systematically favor certain parties
(e.g., certain factions may be more successful than others in articulating their
concerns and may have access to opportunity structures useful for politicizing these
concerns).48 The social structuring of deference, legitimacy, and voluntary com-
pliance may help to suppress conflict and resistance. Similarly, an actor with great
46Johan Galtung, "Appendix: World Social Goals," mimeo, Oslo (no date), p. 5.
47Keohane and Nye refer to this same basic dichotomy in their distinction between a "process-level"
and "structure level," the former having to do with "short-term allocative behavior" and the latter
concerning "how the institutions, fundamental assumptions, and 'rules of the game' of political systems
support or undermine different patterns of allocation for economic activity, as well as in the converse-
how the nature of economic activity affects the political structure." See Keohane and Nye, "World
Politics and the Intemational Economic System," p. 117.
48See the classic article by Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, "Decisions and Non-Decisions: An
Analytical Framework," American Political Science Review Vol. 57 (1963). In addition, the book by
Arthur Vidich and Joseph Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society (New York: Doubleday and Co. Inc.,
1960), while not resting explicitly on a non-decisional framework, is a superb example of the ways in
which resources and valuables are distributed in a town characterized by the nearly total absence of
explicit politics (i.e., open conflicts among parties to resolve public disputes through either authoritative
or non-authoritative means).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
resources, occupying an important position in a network of social relationships,

does not have to "prove itself" in the decisional arena daily. An appreciation of its
power by actors of inferior resources may facilitate a relationship between A and B
which satisfies the superior power. This is why it is crucial not to limit one's
analysis to cases of open conflict.
A convenient way to organize our thinking concerning these structural and
behavioral dimensions is provided by Table II. The vertical axis represents the
Table II Level of analysis: Matrix for Categorizing Global

Relations Literature
Focus on component Actor Focus on system
(1) (2)
Bargaining studies National economic

Dahl, Schelling policy insofar as it is
related to systemic
State constraints, e.g.,
Hirschman's, Na
Power and the S
of Foreign Trade, parts
of dependencia tradition
Type of
actor
(3) (4)
Transnational Dependencia, imperialism

relations as a cross-sectoral
Sector Keohane, Nye, Alger, phenomenon
Moran, Gereffi Cardoso, Dos Santos,
Galtung
various types of actors involved: the nation-sLate or the "sector," a general term
referring to non-governmental actors such as banks, private interest groups, multi-
national corporations, guerrilla organizations, scientific and cultural organizations,
etc. The two broad labels are not meant to convey the impression that these cat-
egories exhaust all the relevant actors. A state, for example, is not an internally
undifferentiated unit and rarely presents itself as such to the remainder of the world.
I am making more than the obvious point that the modern state is a large, compli-
cated structure with many different components. The literature also suggests that
these components are capable of participating relatively autonomously in global

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
politics.49 In such an event, another row needs to be added to the table representing
"transgovernmental" relations, i.e., relations referring to "sub-units of gov-
ernments on those occasions when they act relatively autonomously from higher
authority in international politics.'"50 Just as parts of nation-states may act with
some autonomy, so also nation-states may coalesce into aggregates with some
autonomous supranational power. Whether the European Community is a mere
concert of sovereign powers or a supranational organization with at least limited
autonomy is a much-debated question. To the extent that some partial autonomy is
acquired, however, a new level of organization is created that needs to be taken into
account.
The other dimension of Table II concerns the level at which the analysis is
pitched. One could focus on the component unit in question (nation-state, private
sector, governmental sub-unit, governmental supra-unit) or one could focus on the
systemic properties of relationships among those units. But as argued above, cells
two and four are not mere aggregations or macrocosms of cells one and three,
although aggregation rules are burely involved in some extended sense.5' But be-
yond this there is an attempt to evaluate the structural-systemic content of these
relationships. If one focuses on the component units, his attention is likely to be
drawn toward the motivations of key actors, the goals and strategems involved, and
the capabilities mobilized in the pursuit of these goals. If the attention shifts to the
systemic level, one's focus may shift to institutions, the structure of opportunities
and constraints under which the component units act. The systemic level may also
help us to understand how valuables are allocated outside the decisional arena.
Cell number one: Bargaining among component actors
Although it is difficult (and often impossible) to categorize specific research

contributions as falling into one cell exclusively, the matrix as a whole captures
most of the work on asymmetric international relations. Any one study may be
diversified enough to fall into several cells, e.g., it may be a multilevel analysis,
focusing on both the component actors (e.g., the United States and Israel) as well as
a more systemic level (United States and its alternatives to utilities supplied by
Israel and Israeli alternatives to goods controlled by the United States). However,
49See Morton H. Halperin and Arnold Kanter, eds., Readings in American Foreign Policy: A Bureau-
cratic Perspective (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Co., 1973), particularly the introductory article by
Halperin and Kanter, "The Bureaucratic Perspective: A Preliminary Framework," and Graham H.
Allison, "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review Vol.
63, No. 3 (September 1969). Also see Robert 0. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, "Transgovernmental
Relations and Intemational Organizations," in World Politics Vol. 27, No. 1 (October 1974).
50Keohane and Nye, "Transgovernmental Relations," p. 41.
511 do not want to get involved in the question of whether or not these "systemic" properties can
ultimately be reduced to sets of characteristics describing the individual component units. For an excel-
lent introduction to the major issues involved in this question, see May Brodbeck, "Methodological
Individualism: Definition and Reduction," in May Brodbeck, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of the
Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1968).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
certain scholars (and scholarly traditions) may have varying emphases in these
different cells.
In cell one we think of the literature on international strategy, the bargaining
orientation of Thomas Schelling,52 Anatol Rapoport,53 and Terrence Hopmann,54
and a voluminous literature on conflict, violence, and war.55 This bargaining orien-
tation also subsumes most of the literature on diplomatic history with the exception
of infrequent contributions which attempt to blend accounts of "systemic structure"
with concrete diplomacy of individual statesmen. In this vein the work of Stanley
Hoffmann, Henry Kissinger, and Richard Rosecrance comes to mind,56 but this
already pushes us into the second cell.
To summarize, the first cell is set apart from the others in two ways: one, it
focuses exclusively on the state as actor; two, it limits its attention to the component
units in their relations to one another. This in itself does not necessarily imply
anything about the number of units examined, except that at least two states are
needed to talk about bargaining. But it is quite possible for diplomatic bargaining in
large bodies (e.g., conference diplomacy in the United Nations, various regional
organizations, ad hoc bodies such as the Kennedy Round or the Conference on
European Security) to fit into this cell. To the extent that studies of multi-member
organizations focus only on the component units, we are still operating within an
individualistic bargaining framework. The central question becomes: does the or-
ganization in question possess any properties that operate only at the organizational
level? Or is the organization only the most decentralized vehicle or forum for
52See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, and Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).
53Anatol Rapoport, Fights, Games and Debates (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press,
1960), and Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (New York: Schocken Books, 1969).
54P. Terrence Hopmann, "Bargaining in Arms Control Negotiations: The Seabeds Denuclearization
Treaty," International Organization Vol. 28, No. 3 (Summer 1974).
55This literature is much too large and well-known to justify extensive citation. However, for a good
example of how the state-as-actor focus may be effectively used, one should consult the various works of
Robert C. North and his associates on the Stanford Studies in Conflict and Integration. For a statement of
the Project's early work, see Dina A. Zinnes, Robert C. North, and Howard E. Koch Jr., "Capability,
Threat, and the Outbreak of War," in James N. Rosenau, ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy
(New York: Free Press, 1961). A later report on the Project's work is found in Ole R. Holsti, Robert C.
North, and Richard A. Brody, "Perception and Action in the 1914 Crisis," in J. David Singer, ed.,
Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence (New York: Free Press, 1968). One of the
most recent and comprehensive accounts of the ways in which national decision makers respond to
threats and hostility, measured both in terms of the verbal and physical behavior (e.g., verbal threats and
troop mobilization respectively) of other national decision makers, is provided by Ole R. Holsti's Crisis,
Escalation, War (Montreal, Canada: Queen's University Press, 1972).
56Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver's Troubles, or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968); Stanley Hoffmann, "Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Area as
a Partial International System," in Francis 0. Wilcox and H. Field Haviland Jr., eds., The Atlantic
Community: Progress and Prospects (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1963); Henry Kissinger, "Central
Issues in American Foreign Policy," in Kissinger, American Foreign Policy (New York: Norton, 1974),
particularly Sections 2 and 3 on "The Limits of Bipolarity," and "Political Multipolarity" respectively.
Finally, Richard Rosecrance's Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and
Co., 1963), provides a concrete analysis of the diplomacy of the European state system in the context of
distinctive historical eras.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
facilitating relations among states? Do structural properties emerge which are im-
portant for the behavior of individual actors, e.g., the opportunity structure pre-
sented by the distribution of actors, the composition of potential alliances, the
existence of implicit or formal cartels? Is a new political dimension introduced by
the existence of the organization itself, such that once in existence, it becomes more
than a "mere aggregate" and assumes some independent organizational characteris-
tics? The controversy over whether the European Community is an independent,
autonomous supranational institution as opposed to a collection of nation-states
engaged in a perpetual and complicated horse-trade, with the Commission as
broker, illustrates this point. Donald Puchala's notion of the EC as a "Concordance
System" which bureaucratizes and structures problem-solving among the member
states models nicely the more concrete, detailed analyses of the functioning of
Community institutions.57
Whether a particular study fits into cell one or two is both a conceptual and
empirical question. It is conceptual in that it involves the formulation of a theoreti-
cal position about "emergent" properties of sets of individual actors. It is empirical
in that, once these emergent (i.e., systemic) properties have been specified, it is a
factual question as to how far any empirical example displays these properties.
Cell number two: State-systemic relationships
This cell retains its focus on the state as the essential actor but looks at the
systemic constraints and opportunities under which they operate. These constraints
and opportunities are often assigned to the "environment" in many bargaining
studies and hence ignored. Robert Dahl's insight, derived from the studies of
domestic politics, that limited government (polyarchy) is best nurtured by the
societal dispersion of access to socioeconomic sanctions and to violence58 can be
transferred to the international realm. Here we suggest that non-concentrated distri-
butions of capabilities, opportunities, and constraints work against asymmetric rela-
tional control.
This cell contains a surprising number of scholarly works representing a broad
spectrum of intellectual and ideological orientations. Albert Hirschman's excellent
National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade is an outstanding example of a
study which links the tools of foreign economic policy to the systemic structure of a
state's foreign economic behavior. In a section entitled "Three Statistical Inquiries
Into the Structure of World Trade," Hirschman examines how such structural
considerations as "relative vulnerability of states," "differential influence pos-
57See, in particular, Emile Noel, "Comment Fonctionnent les Institutions des Communautes
Europ6enes" No. 51, Les Documents Communautes Europ&ene (Paris: Bureau D'Information Des
Communautes Europeennes, 1968); and David Coombes, Politics and Bureaucracy in the European
Community: A Portrait of the Commission of the E.E.C. (London, England: George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., 1970).
58Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1971), p. 52.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
sibilities," and "concentration vs. dispersal of market outlets" impinge on a state's

influence capabilities.59
Far more than studies of foreign economic policy fall into this cell. Some of the
literature in the dependencia tradition belongs here, particularly to the extent that the
state is treated as a conscious agent in the creation of obstacles to indigenous
economic and political development. Surprisingly, there are a few studies of foreign
policy that are structure-oriented also. Henry Kissinger's Central Issues of Ameri-
can Foreign Policy60 is an explicit attempt to interpret many of the difficulties of the
United States relationship to its European allies as due to changes in the global
political system from bipolarity to multipolarity and the conflict between military
bipolarity and political multipolarity. Similarly, chapter one of The Troubled Par-
tnership, appropriately titled "The Structural Problems in the Atlantic Alliance,'"'61
suggests the outlines of a structural account of De Gaulle's challenge to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. He argues that in a bipolar military world the distinc-
tion between allies and neutrals diminishes, a fact which gives unprecedented scope
to the independence of an ally's actions.
There are other enlightening examples. Lipsey outlines the structural condi-
tions under which states are likely to profit when forming a regional customs
union.62 The list is not encouraging from the standpoint of the LDCs, suggesting
perhaps that continuation of their ties to a dominant metropolitan power may be
"rational," given the existing structural arrangements. Finally, in Beyond the
Nation-State,63 Ernst Haas examines bargaining relationships within the Interna-
tional Labor Organization during three historical systems: (1) interwar period
1919-1944; (2) 1945-51; and (3) 1952 to present. The three eras are not arbitrary
time chunks. They correspond to major structural configuations of variables that are
relatively discontinuous across eras. Although concrete patterns of behavior were
treated in this study, the content of this behavior is seen to be affected by the
structural characteristics of each historical era.
Cell number three: Sectoral bargaining
The focus of this cell is on the private sector. I use the term "sector" to refer to
any actor inside a political system who is not an official governmental representa-
tive. This is a broad term which includes economic forces such as the international
firm, banks, trading houses, classes, interest groups, professional associations,
religious and scientific organizations, labor unions, and guerrilla organizations. The
59Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. See particularly pp. 85-155.
60Kissinger, American Foreign Policy, pp. 51-97.
6'Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc. 1965), pp. 3-30.
62R. Lipsey, "The Theory of Customs Union: A General Survey," Jagdish Bhagwati, ed., Interna-
tional Trade (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1969).
63 Emst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964). See especially Chapter 13, pp. 429-58.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
political content of some of the above is acknowledged. However, it is argued that

they all belong in this category because they are important transnational actors and
are not official representatives of governments.
Despite some admitted difficulties in determining what is "governmental" and
what is "private," the conceptual content of this cell is by now almost as clear as
that of cell one: it concerns the contacts and bargaining behavior of actors across
national lines where at least one of the actors is not an official representative of the
government.64
Insofar as the transnational relations literature evolved as part of a general
reaction against the "state-as-actor" model of international politics, it contained
two strands in need of distinction: one, an emphasis on those private, social,
non-governmental forces important in our understanding of global politics; two, a
growing realization that the state itself was not a unified structure and more than
occasionally governmental subsystems acted with a high degree of autonomy. It is
only the former focus which is transnational according to our definition while the
study of relatively autonomous governmental subsystems has been the central con-
cern of the bureaucratic politics literature.65
Cell number four: A sectoral-systemic focus
Upon reading works in this cell, one commonly encounters such phrases as
"the global capitalist system," "center and periphery," the "international division
of labor," "dependency networks and structures," and "commodity market and
supply structures." Literature here ranges from contributions of dependencia
theorists and cross-societal theories of imperialism66 to some liberal economic
treatments of the systemic distribution of trade, investment, sources of supply, and
market outlets.67
64This definition is nearly identical to the one offered by Joseph S. Nye and Robert 0. Keohane in
"Transnational Relations and World Politics," in Robert 0. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds., Interna-
tional Organization Vol. 25, No. 3 (Summer 1971): 332. There are a large number of examples in this
category. The special issue of International Organization edited by Keohane and Nye provides diverse
applications as does the mushrooming literature on the multinational corporation. For an excellent study
of the role of business and industrial enterprises within the EEC, see Jean Meynaud and Dusan Sidjanski,
L'Europe Des Affaires: Role Et Structure Des Groupes (Paris: Payat, 1967).
65In some of the early literature this distinction was not sharply made. Both private international
relations and sub-governmental politics were treated together as challenges to the unified state-as-actor
approach. See, for example, Arnold Wolfers, "The Actors in International Politics," in Romano Ro-
mani, ed., The International Political System (New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1972); and James
N. Rosenau, ed., Linkage Politics (New York: Free Press, 1969). See also the excellent article by J.
David Singer, "The Global System and Its Subsystems: A Developmental View," in Rosenau, ed.,
Linkage Politics. A systematic examination of what is implied by this distinction is carried out by
Keohane and Nye, "Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations."
66Johan Galtung, "A Structural Theory of Imperialism."
67Davis B. Bobrow and Robert T. Kudrle, "Theory, Policy and Resource Cartels: The Case of OPEC,"
University of Maryland and University of Minnesota, mimeo (no date).

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
As mentioned, much of the Latin American literature on dependency fits into

this cell,68 or more accurately, overlaps cells two, three, and four. One of the
reasons that the dependencia literature cannot be exclusively forced into either of
these two cells is that Latin American theorists have not found it analytically
desirable to distinguish between private sectors and the governmental system the
way others have. In fact, this literature is characterized by an explicit theory con-
cerning the links between the economic and political system.
One major focus of the dependencia literature centers on the explanation of
underdevelopment, dependence, and the inability to develop autonomously and
otherwise achieve domestic goals. As pointed out earlier, a central part of the
explanation for this dependence syndrome relies on concepts whose observational
terms are both transnational and systemic. A key argument here is that obstacles to
development are not simply external (i.e., imposed from outside) but are the result
of a fusion of internal and external (domestic and foreign) interests. Typically, this
argument takes the following form: a local bourgeoisie merges its interests with
those of the capitalist class of another country and both exist in harmonious relations
to the detriment of the rest of the country. A sample of quotations from several
noted Latin American theorists documents this:
Dos Santos:
To understand dependence as a conditioning context of certain kinds of inter
structure is to understand development as a world-wide historical phenomeno
as a consequence of the formation, expansion, and consolidation of the cap-
italist system.69
Jonas:
It would be an oversimplification to maintain that the international system
causes underdevelopment directly; it does so indirectly, by generating and
reinforcing within Latin America an infrastructure of dependency (italics in
original). What is the infrastructure of dependency? The international system
affects development in Latin America by means of certain institutions, social
classes, and processes (industrial structure, socioeconomic elites, urbaniza-
tion, and so on).... It is through the infrastructure of dependency that the
international system becomes operative within Latin America.70
Cardoso:
Analysis which is based on the naive assumption that imperialism unifies the
interests and reactions of dominated nations is a clear oversimplification of
what is really occurring. It does not take into consideration the internal frag-
mentation of these countries and the attraction that development exerts in
different social strata, and not only on the upper classes.7'
68See footnote 2.
69Dos Santos, "The Crisis of Development Theory and the Problem of Dependence in Latin America,"
p. 73.
70Jonas, "Dependency and Imperialism."
7"Cardoso, "Dependent-Capitalist Development in Latin America," p. 94.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
These quotations stress both the transnational fusion of class interests and the
systemic structure of the international economic system. Similarly, in some of the
interpretations of imperialism which do not rely on diplomatic history, that is,
which do not look upon imperialism as a policy carried out by one country with
another as the target, the key aspect of imperialism becomes the structure of rela-
tions:
Imperialism is even more clearly an economic phenomenon, implying certain

relationships in the international division of labor, in trade and the movement
of capital. Countries like Sweden and Switzerland, which have never had a
colony or dominated one underdeveloped country more than another one,
nevertheless are qualitatively as much imperialist as the United States and
Great Britain.72
In this formulation, imperialism is clearly not a property possessed by an

individual nation but is a characteristic of a network of relationships.
This matrix identifies a broad range of intellectual concerns that will be treated
in this volume. Cells two and four reflect a concern for the more structural aspects
of relational inequalities such as resources, constraints, and opportunities available
to various actors. Cells one and three capture the patterns of negotiation and bar-
gaining that may characterize an explicit conflict. Clearly, individual scholarly
contributions will not always fall exclusively into one cell. Nor would this necessar-
ily be desirable. Various mixes and combinations of these cells may be required in
order to understand different strands of the literature.
Theories of dependence and imperialism provide numerous examples of the
necessity to appeal to, combine, and sometimes blend the content of several cells.
Both dependency theories and approaches to imperialism influenced by Marxist
thinking are based on a theory about the relationship of the state to the economy in
both domestic and international spheres. Both are conceptualized as phenomena that
are simultaneously cross-sectoral (transnational) and international, with strong as-
sumptions added about domestic relationships between the economic and political
systems. Lenin's critique of the free traders in Great Britain on the grounds that the
state was no longer a necessary instrument of colonial domination once industrial
supremacy was achieved brings the basic point to mind73 as does Bernard Semmel's
The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism.74 More recent attempts to integrate economic
and political relationships include Sideri's Trade and Power, which attempts to
show that unequal trade relationships between England and Portugal were due in
part to military and political factors,75 and the work of Luciano Martins76 and
72Pierre Jalee, The Pillage of the Third World (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), p. 15.
73Quoted in John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, "The Imperialism of Free Trade," The Economic
History Review second series, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1953): 2.
74Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1970).
75S. Sideri, Trade and Power: Informal Colonialism in Anglo-Portuguese Relations (Rotterdam, The
Netherlands: Rotterdam University Press, 1970).
76See Luciano Martins, "The Multinational Corporation, 'National Economies' and Intercapitalist

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
Stephen Hymer77 on the combination of political and economic forces at work in the
expansion and control of the multinational corporation. Martins attempts to under-
stand the MNC as an organism operating within a growing international economy
alongside the paradoxical fact of strengthened "national economies" while Hymer
formulates a theory of management and control of MNCs which draws on political-
organizational properties of the nation-state as well as the theory of the firm.
One of the best integrated of recent applied efforts to draw out the relations
among the state and private sectors is the volume edited by Julio Cotler and Richard
Fagen, Latin America and the United States: The Changing Political Realities. In
the introduction to this book, the editors set the tone by acknowledging that they
"sought to add their voices to those who insist that one must often look outside the
government-as-actor for the sources and much of the substance of international
politics" while still recognizing that "nation-states in some larger sense remain the
primary units into which the hemisphere is divided.' '78 In surveying some of the
articles in their own book, Cotler and Fagen note that several contributions (notably
those by Anibal Quijano Obregon and Octavia lanni) build the concept of class into
an important part of the explanation. However, this separation of "class" from the
other variables does not indicate the absence of empirical linkage between class and
characteristics of the political system.
Quite the contrary: the state apparatus is viewed as the organized and legiti-
mated representative of the dominant class, classes, or fractions of classes in
society. It is thus an essential indicator of the social and economic forces at
work as well as the key dispenser and implementer of public policies. But it is
in no sense an autonomous institution, not itself the source of the policies it
promulgates. In other words, for persons who share this perspective, the
analysis of political power and public policy must begin with the analysis of
class, for it is the latter that in one way or another shapes the former.79
Conclusion
In writing this paper, I was motivated partly by a desire to clear away some of
the underbrush in the dependency literature and partly to interpret more adequately
the work already being done in that field. Much of the literature that falls under the
label of either dependence or dependency theory makes no distinctions between the
Competition (A Political Analysis)," Paris, mimeo (August 1974). See also "The Politics of U.S.
Multinationals in Latin America," in Cotler and Fagen, eds., Latin America and the United States: The
Changing Political Realities (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974).
77Stephen Hymer, "The Multinational Corporation and the Law of Uneven Development," in Jagdish
N. Bhagwati, ed., Economics and World Order: From the 1970's to the 1990's (New York: Macmillan
Publishing House, 1972).
78Cotler and Fagen, "Introduction: Political Relations Between Latin America and the United Stat
in Cotler and Fagen, eds., Latin America and the United States, p. 3.
79Cotler and Fagen, "Introduction," p. 7.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00
two processes. In addition, though it was not my intention to construct a theory of

either process here, I did try to develop the links between dependence and power.
I have not attempted to bring the two concepts of dependence and dependency
together under one unified approach. Though the two traditions touch one another at
selected points (e.g., both have an external reliance component), I remain con-
vinced that the differences are more fundamental. I hope to have succeeded in
demonstrating that dependence and dependency are two quite distinct sets of
phenomena. They rest on different assumptions, proceed from different theoretical
traditions, suggest qualitatively different measurement models, and make different
demands for the empirical assessment of hypotheses.
In the last section of the paper, I attempted a broad interpretation of the
international relations literature in terms of the level of analysis (individual vs.
systemic) and the type of actor on which the analysis is based (state vs. private). The
thrust of this section was that an adequate discussion of dependence or dependency
could not take place within just one cell of the matrix. An analysis of dependence
involves the positioning of an actor in its external environment and the confrontation
by that actor of the cost-sensitive choices and constraints facing him. An assessment
of dependency involves the integration of knowledge across cells, too, but in this
case, both governmental and private forces are important. An adequate theory of
dependency requires the integration of knowledge about the state and private sector
within a single country which is then analyzed with an external environment.
The broad outlines of what remains to be done are clear though different for
dependence and dependency. Now that the three conceptual components of depen-
dence have been identified, a concrete measure of dependence should be con-
structed. Though this measure should certainly bring together information on the
magnitude, intensity, and vulnerability of a relationship, it might do this in a
number of ways. Each component may be conceptualized as additively representing
dependence or some form of multiplicative model may be desired (e.g., no depen-
dence is registered unless all three components of the concept have scores greater
than zero). After a quantitative measure is developed, scholars can proceed to tests
of hypotheses about the causes and effects of dependence.
With respect to dependency I am both less certain and more cautious about
fruitful directions to take. Our impulses to quantify and test are so strong that we
often miss nuance and complexity, which I am afraid we have already done in our
premature efforts to test dependency theory. These dangers are all the more real
because semantic precision and syntactical clarity are not the strong points of
dependency theory. Instead of measurement an-d testing, I would expect that a sober
assessment of the kinds of knowledge claims made by dependency theory would be
a first order of business. If dependency theory can be expressed as a body of testable
propositions, the next steps would be similar to those outlined for dependence. I
suspect there will be great controversy at this first stage and that severe disagree-
ment will exist between those who want to move dependency theory in the direction
of verifiable theory along positivist lines and those who see it as an interpretive
device. At this juncture, different scholars may have to part company and go
different ways.

132.204.9.239 on Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:53:16 +00:00

Caporaso-DependenceDependencyPower-1978

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Caporaso-DependenceDependencyPower-1978

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Caporaso-DependenceDependencyPower-1978

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System: A Structural and Behavioral

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706193

This content downloaded from

Although there is already a huge literature on dependence in international relations, many

The last decade has witnessed an acute revival of interest in questions of

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

North-South problems to a much more varied inquiry in which North-South rela-

This content downloaded from

last decade and a half brings to mind a Declaration of Interdependence on July 4,

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

Some preliminaries: definitions and distinctions

One of the difficulties of constructing a conceptual framework for the study of

This content downloaded from

reciprocal dependencies of relevant external actors on the dependent country. Rat-

In the usage of the dependencia school, on the other hand, 'dependence' is

This content downloaded from

Possible complications of definition

Two immediate problems are raised by the two definitions of dependence

This content downloaded from

Structural conditions for existence of dependence

20Emerson, "Power-Dependence Relations," p. 32.

This content downloaded from

Conditions for existence of dependency

The concept of dependence has a straightforward interpretation, "net reliance

This content downloaded from

By dependence we mean a situation in which the economy of certain countries

Even in this simple definition, dependency is defined as a causal relationship, a

Economic dependence we may define as a lack of capacity to manipulate the

Again, dependency is equated with a particular species of non-autonomy,

capitalist accumulation in dependent economies does not complete its cycle.

23Dos Santos, "The Structure of Dependence," p. 231.

This content downloaded from

The central difficulty of incorporating these "distortions" or "deformations"

26Lall, "Is 'Dependence' a Useful Concept?"

This content downloaded from

30Christopher Chase-Dunn, "The Effects of International Economic Dependence on Development and

This content downloaded from

Domestic distortion measures

3"Fernando Henrique Cardoso, "The Consumption of Dependency Theory," mimeo (1976).

This content downloaded from

Merging dependency and dependence with the power literature

32Brewster, "Economic Dependence: A Quantitative Interpretation," p. 92.

This content downloaded from

sary to distinguish between dependence and dependency. In this section I try to

We suggest that a parsimonious way to conceptualize diverse sources of

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

Power in a schedule sense: the Harsanyi-Alker contribution

the opportunity costs to A of attempting to influence B's behavior, i.e., the

This content downloaded from

'production function' describing how a given individual can 'transform' dif-

The essential insight of the Harsanyi-Alker formulation is that it reinterprets

42Alker, "Political Capabilities in a Schedule Sense," p. 308.

This content downloaded from

Table I Power as a generalized production function

Bases of power (1) A's opportunity costs

Applications: bargaining and structural relations in a transnational and