Original A Study on Robert Keohane’s Idea of “Power”

Robert Keohane is a leading contemporary international relations scholar. His ideas and doctrines are important parts of neoliberal institutionalism. In his books Power and Interdependence, and After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, he has a unique perspective on power, a core concept of international relations, that differs from realism and constructivism. This paper uses documentary analysis to distill and summarize the discussion of power in Robert Keohane’s work, which helps to systematically study the neoliberal institutionalist view of power and to make the classic theory show its charm beyond its time.

"sensitivity describes the speed and depth with which a country perceives external change, and vulnerability reflects a country's ability and difficulty to make policy adjustments and changes" and "Sensitivity involves degrees of responsiveness within a policy framework-how quickly do changes in one country bring costly changes in another, and how great are the costly effects?" Sensitivity is measured not only by the scale of cross-border interactions but also by the cost of changes in interactions to society and government. The cost of sensitivity is "sensitivity means liability to costly effects imposed from outside before policies are altered to try to change the situation." It is important to note that interdependence of sensitivity's premise is a fixed policy framework, "a policy framework that should be based on the domestic policy arrangements of countries and related international institutional arrangements based on existing interdependencies." And sensitivity interdependence is not limited to economic aspects but also encompasses social or political aspects.
"Vulnerability can be defined as an actor's liability to suffer costs imposed by external events even after policies have been altered." It is important to note that "policy changes" refer to adverse changes in the country caused by changes in other countries, and the policy framework is changed to respond to them to reduce the country's losses. The "cost of policy adjustment" refers to the cost of responding to such adverse changes. Interdependence of vulnerability is measured as "the cost over time of adjusting to effectively adapt to the changed environment." In addition, vulnerability can be applied to the analysis of both socio-political and political-economic relations.
Sensitivity and vulnerability are Keohane's micro-explanations on the sources of power, and they have three main differences. First, "Interdependence sensitivity reflects the price to be paid for maintaining interdependence, while vulnerability emphasises the price to be paid for breaking it." Second, the former is within the policy framework and the latter emphasizes the spillover effects of policy, which means that sensitivity does not bring about a change in policy, while vulnerability implies a change in policy. At the same time, there is a temporal succession between the two, with sensitivity emerging before vulnerability. "Since it is usually difficult to change policies quickly, immediate effects of external changes generally reflect sensitivity dependence." As sensitivities cause damage to national interests, the responding costs incurred to mitigate or eliminate such adverse effects are vulnerabilities.
Third, "Clearly, it indicates that sensitivity interdependence will be less important than vulnerability interdependence in providing power resources to actors." Vulnerability interdependence is more strategically important than sensitivity interdependence, or it can be argued that vulnerability plays a more fundamental role in the analytical framework of asymmetric interdependence as a source of power. In some cases, even though actors enjoy the power advantages of sensitive interdependence, they are at a disadvantage in vulnerability interdependence, and the difference between the two will affect the outcome of the application of asymmetric interdependence as a power tool.
Keohane further constructed a composite interdependence model based on interdependence, which is different from realism. The basic features of composite interdependence lie in the rejection of three important assumptions of realism, namely that interstate links are no longer the only links between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economics Vol. 4, No. 4, 2021 128 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
societies; that the hierarchy of the international relations agenda cannot be easily divided; and that the prevalence of composite interdependence will inhibit the use of force by states. Three basic features of composite interdependence imply differences in the neoliberal institutionalist and realist perceptions of power. The first is the difference in the importance they attach to the power of different actors. Realism assumes that the state is the most important actor, and interstate links are therefore the most meaningful links in international relations. Moreover, it is often to downplay the non-state actors such as transnational organizations and transnational links between non-governmental elites. The assumption of realism implies that the state is important because it holds the most important power, and tacitly assumes that even in complex international societies, the power of the state far exceeds that of other actors in most areas, which, while not implying an absolute negation of the power of other actors, is at least a choice of indifference at the heart of the paradigm. Next, the issue of hierarchy in the international relations agenda implies the hierarchy between different kinds of power. Keohane revisited a particular but crucial resource of power, namely military power. In doing so, he not only refuted the realist assumption of force as an effective policy instrument but also against the realist hierarchy of the international relations agenda. Although he continued part of the economic and social matters are necessarily classified as less political than military matters.
In addition to military power, Keohane was particularly concerned with information power. He argued that with the information revolution, the cost of processing and transmitting information would fall dramatically. He argued against the idea that the small states will diminish the power of major power countries and increase their own power because of the information revolution. He also cited four reasons for this: the barriers to market entry and economies of scale associated with information, the huge investments required for the collection and production of new information, the startup advantage, and the greater benefits that military powers will enjoy. In addressing the question of how information generates power, Keohane still substituted the analytical framework of interdependence, suggesting that trust is a key resource when measuring information power, and asymmetric trust is a central source of power.
In short, in Robert Keohane's system of power, the concept of power still follows the classical definition and interdependence is the source of power. It is important to note that the source of power is different from the resource of power, which can be a material existence, such as military power relying on the number of nuclear weapons, the number of soldiers, etc., while the source is the transformation of the resource, and power is derived from the comparison of differences in sensitivity and vulnerability between interdependent actors, whose outcomes control is stronger than the "statistics" of resources. On this basis, the categories of power are in fact divided into two categories: interdependence of sensitivity and interdependence of vulnerability. The hierarchy of power then becomes an issue to be understood dynamically, it contrasts with realism's static hierarchy of power, making neoliberal institutionalism more explanatory of policy than realism.

Power and the National Interest
In addition to the development and even reconstruction of sources, hierarchies and categories of power, the neo-liberal institutionalist understanding of power fills some theoretical gaps left unanswered by realism. The first is what is the relationship between rights and the interests of the state? Hans Morgenthau, a representative of classical realism, postulated the following main points about the relationship between power and national interest: (1) International politics is defined as a struggle for power between states in pursuit of their interests and sees national interest as a compromise following domestic political competition, views power as a supporting element in the pursuit of national interest.
(2) The most fundamental national interest is the survival and security of the state, also is the most basic goal served by the struggle for state power. (3)  and power as goals of state action lead us to the conclusion that the two concepts are complementary," and argues that "power is a necessary condition for the endowment of the state and vice versa." Keohane juxtaposed the juxtaposition of wealth and power, which are jointly subsumed in the national interest, and wealth and power are complementary, which allows for mutual transformation. Keohane argued that there is still an inherent coherence between the political economy of the world today and that of the 17th century, citing four propositions made by Jacob Wiener, (1) wealth is the basic means of acquiring power; (2) power is the basic and valuable means of acquiring and maintaining wealth; (3) both wealth and power are the ultimate ends of state action; (4) one may be sacrificed for the other under particular circumstance in the short term, but in the long term, wealth and power are in harmony.
What is unique about Keohane is using the concepts of wealth investment and consumption to describe power, which leads to the permanent question in foreign policy of how to balance the state's investment and consumption of power.
Next, the duality of Keohane's idea of the "national interest" implies that the power of the state is also dualistic. On the one hand, the state is egoistic and therefore its interests are exclusive and cannot be shared. "States are egoists, rational actors acting on the basis of their own conceptions of self-interest," and state power is likewise egoistic and often manifests itself through its preoccupation with the service of the state. On the other hand, because Keohane believes that there is a common interest between states, the interests of the state are also altruistic that leads to the fact that state power should also be altruistic. In neoliberal institutionalism, the altruism of power is reflected in transnational and inter-governmental relations in the context of complex interdependence, where economic and social interactions between countries imply a flow of wealth and power and ultimately establishes a stable network in which different organizations, such as business groups, which gain more benefits.

A Critique of the Hegemonic Stability Thesis
Hegemony is a particular form of power. Robert Keohane argues that hegemony is a single dominant force. Any state entity that exists in the sense of international law has a certain amount of power, but hegemony is clearly not universally possessed by all state actors. In 1973, Charles Kindleberger linked hegemony to the stability of the international order and formally put forward the theory of hegemonic stability. He argued that the existence of a hegemonic state can maintain the international order and ensure the stability of the international system. The influence of the United Kingdom and the United States on the international system when they were hegemonic powers was a typical historical example used by proponents of the hegemonic stability theory to support their views. Robert Keohane's critique of the hegemonic stability thesis is not based on a critique of hegemony, but rather on a critique of the hegemonic model and more precisely the basic power model.

Robert
Keohane argues that there are three models of hegemony: the basic power model, the power-action model and the Marxist model. First, the basic power model, also known as the "unrefined hegemonic stabilising power," "refers to the need for a country to have free access to key raw materials, control major sources of capital, maintain a large import market, and have comparative advantage in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economics Vol. 4, No. 4, 2021 131 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
the production of high value-added goods." The theory assumes that the greater the hegemon's control over the world's political economy, the greater the cooperation between countries, and vice versa. But this crude model of hegemony, which focuses only on having an advantage in the control of material resources, views the hegemon as a necessary and sufficient condition for cooperation in the international system. On the one hand, it ignores the domestic factor, on the other, where the hegemon is dependent not only on the preponderance of power but also on the will to become hegemonic. For example, during the international strife of World War I and World War II, Britain lacked sufficient resources to maintain free trade, while the United States had powerful economic resources but lacked the will to lead the world's political economy. Second, a distilled hegemonic stability theory, which is the power in action model, argues that power does not automatically produce leadership and that "hegemony is defined as a state in which 'a state is strong enough to maintain the ground rules governing relations between states and it is willing to do so.'" Although the theory is more focused on After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy opens with a critique of the basic power model or "unrefined hegemonic stabilising power", which argues that the hegemonic powers have created international institutions that will collapse once the hegemon's power declines, and it is unable to provide the public goods to maintain the stability of the international system. In contrast, Keohane's major doctrinal contribution lies in arguing that post-hegemonic international cooperation is possible and well-documented. First, because international regimes are difficult to establish and the cost of maintaining them is much less than the cost of reestablishing them. "Because international regimes have the effect of reducing transaction costs, providing transactional information, changing actor preferences, and reducing uncertainty, the international regimes that a hegemonic state establishes may still continue to exist after its decline, and cooperative relations between states can be sustained." Second, there is a "time lag" between the decline of hegemony and the collapse of institutions. "The decline of hegemony does not necessarily imply a corresponding decline of the established regimes created under the leadership of the hegemonic state; the inertia of their maintenance allows them to remain independent in their ability to ensure cooperation and peace in a Political Economy provides the doctrinal underpinning for world politics to break the limits of hegemony and to achieve international cooperation through multiple channels.

Power and International Regimes
International regimes were first proposed by John Rudge in the 1970s, meaning the implicitly explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures that emerge from a given field of international relations to which the expectations of a range of actors converge. Comparing world politics to imperfect markets, Keohane argued that international regimes could overcome their shortcomings and thus replace hegemony to achieve cooperation.
In Robert Keohane's idea of power, the relationship between power and international regimes focuses on three aspects. First, the common good has the potential to enable the creation of international regimes, and the common good reflects the shared pursuits of state actors. States tend to behave in their national interests, and through the brief analysis of Keohane's view of national interests in the foregoing, it can be assumed that there is a common pursuit whereby multiple states seek a simultaneous increase in power, such as those benefiting from global trade and payment facilitation, which can be seen as a simultaneous increase in power for all members. The second is that changes in power can explain changes in international regimes. There are five explanatory frameworks for international institutional change: the economic process explanatory model, the overall power structure explanatory model, the problem structure explanatory model, the international organization explanatory model and the integrated explanatory model. The core of this theory is that the competition between states provides the basic driving force for institutional change. The specific path of action lies in the fact that the structure of the international system (the distribution of power between states), which is regarded as the overall power structure, determines the nature of international regimes, and that changes in the overall power structure provide the driving force for changes in the rules of international regimes. Following the logic of the general power structure explanatory model, it is possible to deduce the plausibility of the hegemonic stability theory, and the stability of the world financial system, which was governed by British power in the 19th century, and the Bretton Woods system, which was led by the United States after the Second World War, is often used as a representative example to demonstrate that power influences international regimes. Keohane argues that the limitations of the overall power structure explanatory model are (1) a lack of simplicity, (2) an inability to provide a good basis for prediction, (3) a reluctance to distinguish between problem areas, and (4) an ignorance of the complexity of multi-channel linkages between countries. Finally, in some cases international regimes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economics Vol. 4, No. 4, 2021 133 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
are even avenues for power to operate. In the process of shaping the norms of international regimes, actors can make arrangements that serve national interests. In particular, "the principles of a regime define the goals that its members aspire to pursue." With the globalization of non-traditional security issues such as ecological crises, mass infectious diseases and cyber security threats, the ability of major powers to respond to the risks of globalization can be greatly reduced if they only rely on a single traditional power and do not seek international cooperation and create a response agenda from multiple levels and directions. International regimes enable the participation of as many actors as possible in global governance. International regimes are one of the non-traditional power resources of the great powers, relying on political negotiations to transform power. Moreover, international regimes need a certain degree of legitimacy and authority to fulfil their functions of determining legal responsibilities, reduce transaction costs and provide information. In addition, states' cede initiatively some of its power to international regimes by negotiation and make the international regimes become a source of legitimacy and authority.

A Review of Robert Keohane's Ideas on Power
The Take Power and Interdependence as an example,the masterpiece of interdependence theory, which provides a solid theoretical foundation for the theory of "international regimes" in After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy and they lay the cornerstone of neoliberal institutionalist theory together. However, interdependence itself has certain explanatory limitations.
Increasing interdependence does not necessarily lead automatically to a harmony of interests, but rather more cross-border interaction may lead to suspicion and antagonism between the interests of both parties. Although this problem has been recognized and a "composite interdependence" combining power politics and interdependence has been proposed, it applies more to the sphere of economic and ecological interdependence, and disputes in the higher political sphere inevitably. For example, as the strategic rivalry between the United States and China in the political sphere extends to trade wars and decoupling in the economic sphere, and as the two countries could have cooperated in non-traditional China is adjusting its economic policy under heavy pressure, moving towards a combination of internal economic circulation and international circulation. The tug-of-war between the two sides in the field of power politics and the neglect of compound interdependence, which not only reflect the limitations of the theoretical practice of composite interdependence in the context of Sino-American strategic competition, but also represent another validation of the realist idea of power.
Next, the idea of hegemony is not dispensed with in Keohane's power ideology, but rather packaged.
Although Keohane's doctrine of the "provision" of international regimes, which argues for the possibility of international cooperation after hegemony, reflects to a certain extent the democratic nature of international society. However, there is a certain theoretical bias in Keohane's theory. First, his starting point is how to continue to defend United States hegemonic interests and reduce the costs of United States hegemony through the existing international regimes established by the United States in the face of the decline of United States hegemony, rather than actually establishing a set of international regimes that reflect international democracy and justice. Second, the class nature of international regimes has been ignored or even rationalized. In the post-Cold War international regime, for example, although the voice of emerging countries such as China has increased in important international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, it has not fundamentally changed the "centre-periphery" or "centre-semi-periphery-periphery" structure. The imbalance in the distribution of power has a significant impact on the inherent inequality of the international system, although Keohane's idea of power downplays power politics and at the same time the role of hegemony, it is still a hierarchical idea of power, and the status of the actors involved in the regime is strongly influenced by this.
Last, there are significant theoretical limitations to Keohane's idea of power. On the one hand, it downplays the important role of state power in international regimes. Even though the element of state power is downplayed in the theoretical derivation process, in the practice of international relations, state power is still indispensable for the proper functioning of international regimes once they are formed, as international society still conforms to the realist assumption of anarchy. On the other hand, Keohane does not delve into the timeliness of the common pursuit. The fact that international regimes are formed based on a common pursuit between states, which must remain generally stable over a long period and not change fundamentally in nature, means that only certain issues, which are often transnational in nature and difficult for a single state to solve on its own, can meet this requirement, and that such issues are also practically solvable, rather than being some kind of over-advanced utopianism.
They are also practical and not some kind of utopianism. Thus, once the common quest is concretized, there may be more counter examples to Keohane's theory of the international regimes of decentralization.