Contributions to Political Science and International Relations

From a multidisciplinary approach, this research examines and tests the liberal view that strategic cooperation is the outcome of greater interdependence and international interactions. Cooperation spills over from international networks into international decision-making forums, such as the United Nations. The study demonstrates this by applying a novel network approach. Moreover, analysis and anecdotal evidence suggests that the world enjoys some benefits from the current structure of international relations, in which there is one superpower, multipolarity, and a chief world organization to help coordinate and balance power. Additionally, this work examines bargaining and power relations to see whether issue structuralism, a realistlinkage strategy, or the international organization model of Keohane and Nye (2001) predominates. The international organization model is related to the concept of network governance, rather than hierarchical governance based on coercive military power. Also, many of the contributions made here to political science are in refining some core concepts such as dependence, interdependence, mutual dependence, sensitivity versus vulnerability, conflict, power, and influence. The empirical conception of power, here, is very different from any others in international relations and, yet, better reflects it in a generalized way.