International relations: distinguish trade exposure from costly dependence
The same number of traded units can matter differently to each side when benefits, costs and alternatives differ. This route connects historical context, theoretical comparison and a transparent payoff model. It separates immediate disruption from adaptation and separates an economic loss calculation from an explanation of political choice.
Course topic: International Relations
Study route and exercise: University Reading List editorial project. How we curate · Sources checked:
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Scope and responsibility
For learners who can distinguish description, causal explanation and a stipulated model. All actors, goods, prices and payoffs below are fictional. The interruption is imposed from outside the model; no sanction, bargaining strategy, optimal policy or real-country inference is supplied.
Choose your starting point
I need free historical context
Use Ringmar to challenge a Europe-only starting point and compare regional international orders. It supplies historical questions rather than a complete contemporary IR theory course.
I need a plural theory-and-issues map
Use the selected Baylis, Smith and Owens volume to compare theoretical lenses and global issues. State what each lens highlights and what it leaves unexplained.
I want an explicit interaction framework
Use World Politics to organize interests, interactions and institutions. Turn a verbal dependence claim into a specified comparison with alternatives and constraints.
Compare the three books
History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective
Erik Ringmar · 2019
Free historical counterweight
- Choose it when
- You want to understand non-European orders and the historical formation of a global system.
- Use another route when
- You need a current-events handbook, a comprehensive methods text or a substitute for the other books’ whole theory syllabus.
- Selected reading
- 2019 text: introduction, two contrasting regional orders and the discussion of European expansion by topic.
- Limits and trade-offs
- The authorized CC BY 4.0 text is free. Its historical and regional organization gives perspective but does not by itself estimate modern states’ policy choices.
Try before choosing
Compare what counts as an international actor and an ordering relationship in two regional chapters.
Check your work: Do not impose a single contemporary state model on every historical arrangement without argument.
The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations
John Baylis (ed.); Steve Smith (ed.); Patricia Owens (ed.) · Edition: 10 · 2026
Plural IR course survey
- Choose it when
- You need contrasting theoretical approaches, historical background and global issues in one course map.
- Use another route when
- You expect free student-resource pages to unlock the full commercial enhanced e-book.
- Selected reading
- Selected tenth edition, 2026: relevant theoretical approaches and global political-economy or institutions discussions, selected by topic.
- Limits and trade-offs
- An edited survey offers multiple voices and requires a comparison question to keep the reading focused. Match the tenth edition rather than importing an older edition’s chapter numbering.
Try before choosing
Write two distinct explanations for a trade interruption, then list the evidence each would require.
Check your work: The worksheet computes consequences under assumptions; it supplies neither the interruption’s cause nor a test choosing a theory.
World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions
Jeffry A. Frieden; David A. Lake; Kenneth A. Schultz; Susan D. Hyde; Stephanie J. Rickard · Edition: 6 · 2026
Interests–interactions–institutions framework
- Choose it when
- You want to move from a puzzle to actors’ preferences, alternatives and institutional constraints.
- Use another route when
- You need a freely accessible complete text or want payoff arithmetic alone to settle political behavior.
- Selected reading
- Sixth edition, 2026: the framework and cross-border goods/services discussion, then institutions as needed.
- Limits and trade-offs
- This edition includes Hyde and Rickard with Frieden, Lake and Schultz. Print, standalone e-book and interactive products have different identifiers and access arrangements.
Try before choosing
Make separate ledgers for baseline trade, immediate interruption and feasible adaptation.
Check your work: Equal gross units traded do not imply equal losses, and unequal losses do not establish who can credibly impose a political outcome.
Check your preparation
What is the comparison?
Each actor’s payoff under baseline trade minus its payoff in the specified disrupted or adapted alternative. Baselines and alternatives must use the same units.
What is outside the model?
Preferences over political outcomes, threats, bargaining, domestic distribution, enforcement and long-run adjustment. The interruption is exogenous rather than an actor’s optimized action.
When is a cost incurred?
Only for units actually produced. Unpurchased units yield zero benefit and unproduced units incur zero cost. This packet contains no pre-produced stock or sunk production expense.
A six-step study plan
Steps completed: 0 / 6
These are your own study marks, not an assessment. They are not sent to this site.
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Define the actors and question
Selected reading: World Politics framework.
What to do: Write the payoff unit, baseline and question to be answered.
Check your work: Distinguish an economic loss question from a political strategy question.
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Broaden the historical frame
Selected reading: Ringmar regional-order comparison.
What to do: Write a short comparison of actors and relationships across two historical settings.
Check your work: Treat the fictional model as an analytical tool, not a universal historical description.
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Compute immediate exposure
Selected reading: The original packet.
What to do: Calculate baseline payoffs and losses when no alternatives are immediately available.
Check your work: Gross traded quantity is not either side’s net payoff.
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Add adaptation
Selected reading: Relevant political-economy reading.
What to do: Recompute using the explicitly feasible replacement buyer and supplier.
Check your work: Charge production only for actual output; no unstated sunk stock.
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Change one capacity
Selected reading: The solved follow-up.
What to do: Reduce only the buyer’s replacement capacity and derive the loss function.
Check your work: Keep every other alternative, price and cost fixed.
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Compare interpretations
Selected reading: Baylis and colleagues theoretical comparison.
What to do: Write what the arithmetic establishes and what additional evidence a leverage claim needs.
Check your work: Do not present a one-period exogenous interruption as an equilibrium or a policy recommendation.
Worked exercise
Original fictional trade packet: equal flow, unequal interruption losses
Aster buys 10 commodity units from Bery at price 3 tokens each. Each purchased unit gives Aster benefit 8; each unit Bery actually produces costs it 1. Calculate baseline payoffs and immediate losses if trade stops with no alternatives. Then let Aster replace all 10 units at price 5 and let Bery sell 8 units elsewhere at price 2.
Assumptions
One period, fictional actors and linear token payoffs. The interruption is exogenous. Costs occur only on actual production, with no inventory or sunk production of the original 10 units. Unpurchased units yield zero benefit. Alternatives have the stated capacities and no other costs or political effects.
- Baseline Aster payoff is 10×(8−3)=50 tokens; Bery’s is 10×(3−1)=20. The bilateral quantity is the same 10 units, but the net gains differ.
- Immediately after interruption, no replacement purchases or sales are possible. Both payoffs are 0, so losses relative to baseline are 50 and 20 tokens.
- With adaptation, Aster buys 10 at 5: payoff 10×(8−5)=30, loss 50−30=20. Bery produces and sells only 8 at 2: payoff 8×(2−1)=8, loss 20−8=12.
- Do not charge Bery for two unproduced units: no pre-production or sunk cost was stipulated. The adapted loss gap is 20−12=8 tokens.
- This shows different exposure and different feasible adjustment in this packet. It does not determine the interruption’s cause, the credibility of a threat, an optimal sanction or a bargaining outcome.
Answer and interpretation
Baseline payoffs are (50,20); immediate losses (50,20); adapted payoffs (30,8) and losses (20,12), all in tokens. Equal trade quantity is not equal economic dependence under these assumptions.
Test the result
Reconcile each loss as baseline minus alternative payoff and production cost with actual output. A political-leverage conclusion needs preferences, strategic options and evidence absent from the packet.
Change an assumption
Changed replacement capacity: quantify the buyer’s remaining alternatives
Keep all assumptions, prices and Bery’s alternative unchanged, but Aster can replace only 4 units at price 5. Recompute losses, then express Aster’s adapted loss for replacement capacity k between 0 and 10 units. Can its loss equal Bery’s 12 within that range?
- At capacity 4, Aster’s payoff is 4×(8−5)=12; the six unpurchased units yield no benefit or cost. Its loss is 50−12=38.
- Bery still produces 8 alternative-sale units with payoff 8 and loss 12. The loss gap becomes 38−12=26, compared with 8 when Aster could replace 10.
- For 0≤k≤10, Aster’s replacement payoff is 3 k and loss is 50−3 k. It ranges from 50 to 20 tokens.
- Equality with Bery’s loss would require 50−3 k=12, or k=38/3≈12.667 units, outside the allowed capacity range. Aster’s loss therefore remains larger throughout this packet.
- Changing one outside option changes the loss comparison. It still does not make the interruption an optimized action or identify political influence; those questions require a different model and evidence.
Answer and interpretation
At capacity 4, adapted losses are (38,12) with gap 26. For k∈[0,10], Aster’s loss is 50−3 k, always above 12; equality would need an infeasible capacity of 38/3 units.
Test the result
Check k=0,4,10 and keep Bery’s actual production at 8. Do not turn a feasible-alternative calculation into a real-country policy or bargaining prediction.
Common mistakes
Gross flow treated as net dependence
Benefits, production costs and alternative capacities must be specified separately.
Adaptation mixed with immediate disruption
Different horizons and feasible options answer different counterfactuals.
Loss treated as political control
An economic payoff gap alone does not establish threats, preferences or an equilibrium outcome.
Before moving on
- I can reconcile baseline, immediate and adapted payoff ledgers.
- I can change one capacity and derive its feasible loss range.
- I can separate the model’s arithmetic from historical and political explanations.
Sources and edition checks
Sources checked:
- Open Book Publishers:2019 free non-European history
The publisher identifies the free historical text, its permissions and non-European scope.
- Official complete historical text
The publisher links the authorized historical reading route.
- OUP: tenth-edition student-resource scope
Official tenth-edition student resources identify the selected survey, without a free-full-book claim.
- Norton:2026 sixth edition, five authors and 3 Is framework
The publisher identifies the sixth edition, its five authors and 3 Is framework; all actors and calculations here are original fiction.
These are proposed study activities, not official course assignments or a claim that every book has been read cover to cover.