<p>???? States nowadays try to frame and implement economic policies that can maintain the stability of the international economy upon which they are all increasingly dependent. That usually involves economic policies that can deal adequately with international?markets, with the economic policies of other states, with foreign investment, with foreign exchange rates, with international trade, with international transportation and communications, and with other international economic relations that affect national wealth and welfare. Economic interdependence, meaning a high degree of mutual economic dependence among countries, is a striking feature of the contemporary state system. Some people consider that to be a good thing because it may increase overall freedom and wealth by expanding the global marketplace and thereby increasing participation, specialization, efficiency, and productivity. Other people consider it to be a bad thing because it may promote overall inequality by allowing rich and powerful countries, or countries with financial or technological advantages, to dominate poor and weak countries that lack those advantages. But either way,wealth and welfare obviously are among the most fundamental values of international relations. That approach to the study of world politics is typical of IPE(international political economy) theories of IR( Gilpin 1987). It operates on the assumption that international relations can be best characterized as fundamentally a socioeconomic world and not merely a political and military world.</p><p>????? Most people usually take these basic values(security;freedom;order and justice;welfare) for granted. They only become aware of them when something goes wrong--for example, during a war or a depression, when things begin to get beyond the control of individual states. On those learning occasions people wake up to the larger circumstances of their lives which in normal times are a silent or invisible background. At those moments they are likely to become sharply aware of what they take for granted, and of how important these values really are in their everyday lives. We become aware of national independence and our freedom as citizens when peace is no longer guaranteed. We become aware of internaional order and justice when some states, especially major powers, abuse, exploit, denounce, or disregard international law or trample on human rights. We become aware of national welfare and our own personal socioeconomic well-being when foreign countries or international investors use their economic clout to jeopardize our standard of living.</p>
