Power, Politics, and Higher Education in Southern Africa: Interna ...

Chapter 1

Introduction

Keohane and Nye (2001) stated that international regimes are “intermediate factors between the power structure of an international system and the political and economic bargaining that takes place with it” (18); they argued that the structure of the system affects the nature of regime, and the regime, in turn, influences the political bargaining and daily decision making that occurs within the system (see Figure 1).

Although admitting that a regime derives from the interaction between power structure and politico-economic bargaining, Keohane and Nye’s definition suggested a dynamic interaction of power and bargaining, alludes to an attempt to maintain a degree of order or procedures, and suggested the indispensability of regimes in sustaining life within a system and the bargaining within the system. In other words, the very agents that birthed the regime become dependent on it for their balanced survival.