Planned Global Interdependence as a Foreign Policy Goal: The Problem of Coordinating Trading Relationships

Abstract. The significance of the concept of interdependence is dealt with from four aspects. 1) Attention is focused upon the meanings attached to the concept of interdependence in the growing literature on the subject. 2) The mathematical structure of the concept is analyzed and its implications for, and restraints upon, global planning are emphasized. 3) the analysis of the implications of the concept for global planning is further extended by a discussion of the tasks that would be involved in all efforts to coordinate global plans that have been developed within a framework of International forms of interdependence. 4) An effort is made to relate the tasks of coordination for global plans that reflect various forms of interdependence, to economic concerns and to the relationships that arise for interdependencies of trade.