The new interdependence approach: theoretical development and empirical demonstration

ABSTRACT

Mainstream approaches to international political economy seek to explain the political transformations that have made more open trade relations possible. They stress how changing coalitions of interest groups within particular states and changing functional needs of states give rise to new international agreements. While these approaches remain valuable, they only imperfectly encompass a new set of important causal relations. We now live in the world that trade built – a world where greater interdependence has major consequences both for actors' interests and their ability to pursue those interests. A new body of work, which we have called the 'new interdependence' explains how these transformations are playing out. The new interdependence stresses a structural vision of international politics based on rule overlap between different national jurisdictions, which leads to clashes over whose rules should apply when. This not only generates tensions, but also opportunity structures that may help actors to better shape potential solutions to these clashes. However, some actors will have greater access to these opportunity structures, and hence greater influence and bargaining strength – than others. These three factors – rule overlap, opportunity structures and power asymmetries – provide the basis for a compelling understanding of international politics.

KEYWORDS:

• international political economy
• interdependence
• international regulation
• transnational politics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to acknowledge the valuable comments of Tim Bartley, Stephen Chaudoin, Julia Gray, Miles Kahler, Manuela Moschella, Elliot Posner, Tana Johnson and Felicity Vabulas on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The approach was initially outlined in Farrell and Newman (2014) and Farrell and Newman (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Henry Farrell

Henry Farrell is an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He works on a variety of topics, including trust, the politics of the Internet and international and comparative political economy. He has written 31 academic articles as well as a book, The Political Economy of Trust: Interests, Institutions and Inter-Firm Cooperation, published by Cambridge University Press.

Abraham Newman

Abraham L. Newman is an associate professor at the BMW Center for German and European Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University. He is the director of the Mortara Center for International Studies and senior editor at International Studies Quarterly. His research focuses on the international politics of regulation and he is the author of Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy (Cornell University Press, 2008) and the co-editor of How Revolutionary was the Digital Revolution (Stanford University Press, 2006). His work has appeared in a range of journals including Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Science, and World Politics.