scholarly journals In search of Karl Polanyi’s International Relations theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Dale
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
European Integration ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
International Order ◽  
New Regionalism ◽  
Karl Polanyi

AbstractKarl Polanyi is principally known as an economic historian and a theorist of international political economy. His theses are commonly encountered in debates concerning globalisation, regionalism, regulation and deregulation, and neoliberalism. But the standard depiction of his ideas is based upon a highly restricted corpus of his work: essentially, his published writings, in English, from the 1940s and 1950s. Drawing upon a broader range of Polanyi’s work in Hungarian, German, and English, this article examines his less well-known analyses of international politics and world order. It sketches the main lineaments of Polanyi’s international thought from the 1910s until the mid-1940s, charting his evolution from Wilsonian liberal, via debates within British pacifism, towards a position close to E. H. Carr’s realism. It reconstructs the dialectic of universalism and regionalism in Polanyi’s prospectus for postwar international order, with a focus upon his theory of ‘tame empires’ and its extension by neo-Polanyian theorists of the ‘new regionalism’ and European integration. It explores the tensions and contradictions in Polanyi’s analysis, and, finally, it hypothesises that the failure of his postwar predictions provides a clue as to why his research on international relations dried up in the 1950s.

The Political Economy of African International Relations

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
New States ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Our understanding of the international political economy of Africa is underdeveloped; we have inadequate data and theories about the development of underdevelopment on the continent. Even the orthodox study of international politics and foreign policy in Africa is largely a recent phenomenon, stimulated by the rise of new states in the last twenty years. This essay, then, can be no more than a review of the field and a lament over its deficiencies. In particular, we are concerned about: i) the relative inattention afforded the impact of international politics on the rate and direction of social change in African states; ii) the need for a new conceptual framework to advance our understanding of the linkage politics between African elites and external interests; and iii) the related growth and international inequalities on the continent. This essay proceeds therefore from a critical review of analyses of the international political economy of Africa to a tentative presentation of a new typology of states and regimes, regions and behavior, in Africa which reflects the importance of those variables on which students of political economy focus.

Recasting Gramsci in international politics

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
OWEN WORTH
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
Alternative Understanding ◽  
Realist Concept

AbstractGramscian theory has had a profound influence on critical and Marxist thought within International Relations (IR), particularly in bringing an alternative understanding to the realist concept of hegemony. Despite these developments much Gramscian theory remains developed within the often narrow sub-discipline of International Political Economy (IPE), with Gramscian scholars such as Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams and Ernesto Laclau from diverse disciplines outside of IR largely ignored. This article argues that Gramscian theory needs to be re-thought so that it moves away from the Coxian dominated ontology that it is currently situated within, towards one which both provides a more open theory of global hegemony and engages more with civil societal areas that have often been ignored by those within IPE.

scholarly journals From Latin American International Political Economy to Latin American Global Political Economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-33
Author(s):  
Ernesto Vivares ◽  
Raúl Salgado Espinoza
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
World Order ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Global Challenges

This paper focuses on the differences between International Political Economy (IPE) versus Global Political Economy (GPE) in Latin America. It explores how IPE tends to be taught and researched beyond mainstream IPE but in dialogue with it. It engages with the main literature of this field to discuss the contours and extension of a transition in teaching and research. It rests upon a historical sociological approach and employs a qualitative analysis of syllabi and curricula of various masters and doctoral programs on International Relations/Studies and underlying disciplines, and is complemented with semi-structured interviews with leading scholars of IPE from across the region. The paper argues that there is a shift from mainstream IPE to a new Latin American GPE as the result of a revitalization of the field and as a response to the new regional and global challenges. New dynamics of development, conflict and a changing world order coexist with old problems, pushing our field to find new responses, demonstrating the limits of the traditional knowledge, and requiring the development of new contributions. While the shift may be minor, it is constant and steady, and is neither homogenous nor dominated by a unique vision of the field, but it is defined by heterogeneity and plurality.

Mind the gap: IR and the challenge of international politics

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101
Author(s):  
Sonia Lucarelli ◽  
Francesco N. Moro ◽  
Daniela Sicurelli ◽  
Carla Monteleone ◽  
Eugenia Baroncelli
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Selection Of

The discipline of International Relations (IR) for a long time of its history has developed in the form of Great Debates that involved competing paradigms and schools. More recently, it has been described as a cacophony of voices unable to communicate among themselves, but also incapable to provide keys to understand an ever more complex reality. This collection aims at evaluating the heuristic value of a selection of traditional paradigms (realism and liberalism), schools (constructivism), and subdisciplines (security studies and international political economy) so as to assess the challenges before IR theory today and the ability of the discipline to provide tools to make the changed world still intelligible.

E.H. Carr and IPE: An Essay in Retrieval

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 952-962
Author(s):  
Randall Germain
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Scale ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract Although the work of E.H. Carr has a prominent place in the scholarly history of international relations (IR), it is notably absent from the discipline of international political economy (IPE). This is puzzling, because Carr's analysis of international politics places a strong emphasis on the organic connection between politics and economics on an international scale. On this reading, his principal publications on IR can also be seen to chart a sophisticated conceptualization of what I want to label historical IPE. This essay retrieves such a reading of Carr for the discipline of IPE. It begins by interrogating the way in which Carr's work has been appropriated by modern IPE scholarship, in order to highlight the limited use made of the political economy dimension of his research. I then explore the historical and political economy aspects of Carr's writings to consider how his contribution might advance recent contemporary theoretical debate in the discipline. I pay particular attention to how his work charts an historical conception of IPE that can synthesize and move beyond the rationalist/constructivist binary that currently dominates theorizing in the discipline.

Liberal Perspectives on the Global Political Economy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darel E. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Liberal Approach

Liberal international political economy (IPE) is the offspring of a marriage between mainstream international economics with its focus on markets and mainstream international relations with its emphasis on the state. While clearly involving the traditional disciplines of economics and political science, liberal scholarship in IPE tends to be housed almost exclusively in the latter. Liberal IPE has always maintained a special relationship with its absentee father economics, looking to it particularly as a source of theoretical and especially methodological inspiration. In its earlier phase, the “American school” of IPE, also known by its practitioners as Open Economy Politics (OEP), was strongly oriented toward studying the societal determinants of state trade policy and indeed continues to expand upon this terrain. OEP has moved into many diverse areas since then. Having roots in both neoclassical economics and realist international relations theory, OEP has a strong tendency to limit its empirical interest to observable behavior, define interest in strictly material terms, and assume the psychology of decision-making to be rational and therefore unproblematic. Unsurprisingly, OEP has little room for ideas as interesting and important objects of study, and in turn some of the early pioneers of the liberal approach in IPE have lamented its becoming “too materialistic.”

The Political Economy of African International Relations

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
New States ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Our understanding of the international political economy of Africa is underdeveloped; we have inadequate data and theories about the development of underdevelopment on the continent. Even the orthodox study of international politics and foreign policy in Africa is largely a recent phenomenon, stimulated by the rise of new states in the last twenty years. This essay, then, can be no more than a review of the field and a lament over its deficiencies. In particular, we are concerned about: i) the relative inattention afforded the impact of international politics on the rate and direction of social change in African states; ii) the need for a new conceptual framework to advance our understanding of the linkage politics between African elites and external interests; and iii) the related growth and international inequalities on the continent. This essay proceeds therefore from a critical review of analyses of the international political economy of Africa to a tentative presentation of a new typology of states and regimes, regions and behavior, in Africa which reflects the importance of those variables on which students of political economy focus.

The 1945 World Order – Process with «Open» Continuation

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
V. T. Yungblud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Order ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Bipolar Structure ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, established by culmination of World War II, was created to maintain the security and cooperation of states in the post-war world. Leaders of the Big Three, who ensured the Victory over the fascist-militarist bloc in 1945, made decisive contribution to its creation. This system cemented the world order during the Cold War years until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the destruction of the bipolar structure of the organization of international relations. Post-Cold War changes stimulated the search for new structures of the international order. Article purpose is to characterize circumstances of foundations formation of postwar world and to show how the historical decisions made by the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers in 1945 are projected onto modern political processes. Study focuses on interrelated questions: what was the post-war world order and how integral it was? How did the political decisions of 1945 affect the origins of the Cold War? Does the American-centrist international order, that prevailed at the end of the 20th century, genetically linked to the Atlantic Charter and the goals of the anti- Hitler coalition in the war, have a future?Many elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations in the 1990s survived and proved their viability. The end of the Cold War and globalization created conditions for widespread democracy in the world. The liberal system of international relations, which expanded in the late XX - early XXI century, is currently experiencing a crisis. It will be necessary to strengthen existing international institutions that ensure stability and security, primarily to create barriers to the spread of national egoism, radicalism and international terrorism, for have a chance to continue the liberal principles based world order (not necessarily within a unipolar system). Prerequisite for promoting idea of a liberal system of international relations is the adjustment of liberalism as such, refusal to unilaterally impose its principles on peoples with a different set of values. This will also require that all main participants in modern in-ternational life be able to develop a unilateral agenda for common problems and interstate relations, interact in a dialogue mode, delving into the arguments of opponents and taking into account their vital interests.

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