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Recent research on international interdependence has led to increasingly sophisticated conceptualizations of the phenomenon. However, it has not been very successful in measuring interdependence, nor in testing theories about it. Although the theoretical message of most interdependence research is that interdependence is multinational or systemic, empirical operationalization has tended to concentrate on looking for interdependence (or integration, or community) as a relationship between a pair of nation states, rather than as an international pattern of behavior among an entire set of countries. Complicating these empirical analyses is their lack of operationally defined end states. In general, the approach has been to look for changes or differences in behavior, rather than for absolute levels of interdependence or integration. This is, at best, only an indirect test of the validity of a theory, regardless of how well or how badly it enables one to examine and compare one set of nations with another or the same set over time.

This essay explores the crisis of global interdependence that has arisen from competing North-South perceptions of interdependence and from inequitable relations among Third World and industrialized states of the North. Illustrating the general features of the crisis through a case study of the Middle East, the author argues that techniques of economic, political and cultural cooptation have been used by the West to foster a form of interdependence that is of primary benefit to wealthier segments of the global community. To the degree that some Third World states (notably Egypt) now identify with the West, this strategy has been successful. However, the costs to world order are considerable. As they become more integrated into Western-dominated networks of "interdependence," Third World states face intensifying social contradictions that cannot be resolved through socialist or other noncapitalist strategies. Redress of these problems requires a new legal category of ownership – internationalized property – under which corporate capital, power, and productive capacity would be transferred from the predominant domain of the North to a commonwealth of world states. This basis for world authority would avoid the side– and counter-effects associated with world government and would provide the foundation for a more just world order.

The definition and direction of interdependence remain unclear. As a corrective, interdependence can be defined as the direct and positive linkage of the interests of states where a change in the position of one state affects the position of others and in the same direction. Interdependence, then, is measured both by the flow of goods between states—horizontal interdependence, and the equalization of factor prices among states-vertical interdependence. Horizontal and vertical interdependence measured across six industrialized states from 1890–1975 reveal some important changes in the interdependence among these states. Fairly significant before World War I, interdependence declined markedly in the interwar period. Following World War II, interdependence seemed to increase once again, but since 1958 the measures appear much more mixed. The data seem to support a detachment of individual national policies from the general trend toward interdependence. This detachment may alter the trend, reducing the positive and direct relationship among industrial economies.

Essentially, international relations are those between global societies with political & territorial boundaries. The territorialization of global societies gives rise to a specific kind of contradiction: the political occupation of tracts of land & their delimitation from other areas occupied in the same way brings about an interdependence between global societies, since no single given territory can contain all those natural requisites which a country as a whole can offer. Using the methods of historical sociology & anthropology, two types of interdependence are noted: original & technological. The former results from natural conditions while the latter results from the development of the production which compensates for natural deficiencies. Relations between states depend upon the form & the degree of interdependence, themselves affected by variables that could be investigated both quantitatively & qualitatively, helping to explain the course of the relations between the observed states. AA.

Nach Auffassung des Autors sind die Nachbarstaaten der RSA in einer Reihe von Sektoren (z.B. Transport, Elektrizität, Arbeitsplätze) in einem derart hohen Maße von der RSA abhängig, daß gegen die RSA verhängte Wirtschaftssanktionen sie hart treffen würden. (DÜI-Spe)