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Toward a New World Information and Communication Order?
(Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1992) and Johan Galtung. 'Social Communication and Global Problems" in P. Lee, ed.,
Communication for All: New World and Communication Order (New York: Orbis Books, 1985) .
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place because of interdependent relations may be subject to regimes, but interdependence is not a synonym for regimes. Interdependence is also a characteristic of
integration, the idea that increasing interactions lead toward a unification of goals, institutions and possibly even states. It is seen in the international standardization of technical capabilities, such as the VCR. But
interdependence is only a necessary and hardly a sufficient condition for increased economic and political unification. '. . . [I]ntegration of societies entails a degree of common governance which goes far beyond that which is implied by
interdependence."11 Much of the discussion of economic
interdependence is found in the literature on integration, specifically European integration. Information integration is happening slowly. For example, the European Union has pursued 'Television Without Frontiers," which encourages transborder broadcasts throughout the Union. But this
action does not address the dominance of one television market (American) over another (European).
Finally, globalization has become a general term
signifying an overwhelming, unifying force which tends to decrease the importance of political and cultural
boundaries. This concept comes the closest to
11 Jones and Willetts. Interdependence on Trial, p. 20.
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interdependence, but its broad nature has only begun to be concretized. One explanation is the 'increasing significance of the external context for issues that were formerly deemed to be 'national' in character or amenable to local
resolution."12 As one example, the effects of information flows on globalization have been touted in statements about 'The Global Village," a place in which more communication
provides increased numbers of global interactions as well as increasingly homogenized world citizens. This idea that the international arena will increase in importance at all
levels from the global to the individual takes into account the linkages between different actors, but it does not
explain the nature of these relationships. Interdependence, once again, can be a necessary condition for globalization, but not a sufficient one. Yet, it does provide the important concepts for understanding the nature of global interactions in an information age.
Drawing on some keys points within each alternative
explanation, we find that interdependence can be a
theoretically unifying concept. It provides us with 1) an explanation of uneven relationships in various issue areas (World Systems Theory and Structural Imperialism), 2) an
12 Jones, R.J. Barry. Globalisation and Interdependence in
the International Political Economy: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Pinter Publishers, 1995), p. 11.
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environment for making decisions in these issue areas
(Regimes)/ 3) an explanation of the goals of the actors
(Integration), and 4) a context in which these relationships take place (Globalization). Interdependence combines these ideas and explains how they interrelate. Complex
interdependence provides a strong grounding for
understanding them.
Complex interdependence is probably the most well-known attempt to theorize interdependence in the field of
international relations. In the mid-1970s, Robert 0.
Keohane and Joseph Nye, Jr. explained the nature of
relationships taking place in the world going beyond the assumptions of realism.13
In brief, this theory states that power does not lie
only in the traditional areas of study in international relations: the state and military strength. Keohane and Nye define interdependence as reciprocal effects among actors resulting from 'international transactions - flows of money, goods, people, and messages across international
boundaries."14
13 These assumptions are generally understood to include the
primacy of the state as an actor, as well as the dominance of military and security issues in the study of international
relations.
14 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye. Power and
Interdependence, 2nd ed. (Glenview, 111.: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown, 1989), pp. 8-9.
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The defining characteristics of complex interdependence (see Table 1.1) are 1) a multiple number of actors, placing an emphasis on non-state actors (a discussion of the relationships in the system [the uneven characteristic will be elaborated on below]) 2) multiple channels through which these actors interact in the system (a context in which the relationships take place), 3) a changing hierarchy of issues (an explanation of the goals of the actors) and 4) a decrease in the use of military force in interactions (a broadening of the environment in which decisions are made) .15
Table 2.1