Institutions and the Global Political Economy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

In a comparison of today’s global political economy with that of the last great era of globalization, the late nineteenth century, the most prominent distinction is be the high degree of institutionalization in today’s system. While the nineteenth-century system did have some important international institutions—in particular the gold standard and an emerging network of trade agreements—it had nothing like the scope and depth of today’s powerful international economic institutions. We cannot understand the functioning of today’s global political economy without understanding the sources and consequences of these institutions. Why were international organizations (IOs) such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or International Monetary Fund (IMF) created? How have they gained so much influence? What difference do they make for the functioning of the global economy and the well-being of individuals around the world? In large part, understanding IOs requires a focus on the tension between the use of power, and rules that are intended to constrain the use of power. IOs are rules-based creatures. They create and embody rules for gaining membership, for how members should behave, for monitoring, for punishment if members renege on their commitments, etc. However, these rules-based bodies exist in the anarchical international system, in which there is no authority above states, and states continue to exercise power when it is in their self-interest to do so. While states create and join IOs in order to make behavior more rule-bound and predictable, the rules themselves reflect the global distribution of power at the time of their creation; and they only constrain to the extent that states find that the benefits of constraint exceed the costs of the loss of autonomy. The tension between rules and power shapes the ways in which international institutions function, and therefore the impact that they have on the global economy. For all their faults, international economic institutions have proven themselves to be an indispensable part of the modern global political economy, and their study represents an especially vibrant research agenda.

1. The Study of Global Political Economy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
The World ◽  
World Poverty ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The Impact

This volume provides an introduction to the field of Global Political Economy (GPE). It explores some of the approaches that have addressed the key concerns of theorists of GPE; for example. what conditions are most conducive to the emergence of collaborative behaviour among states on economic issues, or what are the determinants of the foreign economic policies of states. It examines various aspects of the debate about globalization as well as the impact of globalization on world poverty, inequality, and the environment. It also considers how globalization has changed the relations between industrialized and less developed economies. This chapter discusses the global financial crisis and the world economy pre-1914, in the interwar period, and post-1945. It also analyses the emergence of GPE as a field and describes a number of approaches to the study of GPE.

Globalisation and resistance: struggles over common sense in the global political economy

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW STEPHEN
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Legitimation Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article develops and applies the role of ‘common sense’ in a Gramscian theory of transnational counter-hegemony. Building on recent interpretative literature on the alter-globalisation movement, it applies this framework to then evaluate empirically the impact of the alter-globalisation movement on the realm of global ‘common sense’ understandings of the world in the period 2002 to 2007. It shows that there is little empirical support for the notion that the alter-globalisation movement effected a legitimation crisis for neo-liberalism as a hegemonic project on a global scale. Instead, a more ambivalent and potentially reactionary situation amongst collectively held norms is revealed. This indicates the shortcomings of the alter-globalisation movement as a coalition of social forces capable of mounting an ideological attack on neo-liberalism and forging a new intellectual-moral bloc.

The Political Economy of Hegemony: The (Surprising) Persistence of American Hegemony

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Oatley
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Debt ◽  
The United States ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

First-generation research in International Political Economy focused considerable attention on the relationship between hegemony and global economic stability. This focus was the result of a confluence of scholarly and policy concerns about the impact that the apparent decline of U.S. hegemony would have on international trade and investment regimes. Interest in this hegemonic stability hypothesis waned, however, as deeper explorations of the theoretical logic indicated that hegemony was not a necessary condition for international economic openness, and as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent “unipolar moment” suggested that American hegemony was hardly in decline. Interest in hegemony resurfaced in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis triggered many scholars to proclaim the end of the era of American global hegemony. Scholars argued that the U.S. government’s attachment to a large budget and trade deficits and the resulting growth of foreign debt were likely to weaken foreign confidence in the dollar and encourage the shift to an alternative reserve currency such as the Euro. At the same time, China’s rapid industrialization and emergence as a large creditor nation was creating a new pole in the international economy that constituted a meaningful alternative to a global economy organized around the United States’ economy. Thus, a shift toward a Beijing hegemony was all but inevitable. The predicted decline of American hegemony has yet to materialize. The U.S. economy remains the world’s largest, and the U.S. government continues to play the leading role in system making—creating new rules to govern international economic cooperation—and in privilege taking—manipulating these rules in ways that advantage U.S. public and private sector actors. Moreover, the U.S. government plays this role in all three economic subsystems: finance, knowledge, and production. Empirical scholarship conducted over the last decade encourages one to conclude by paraphrasing Mark Twain: Recent reports of the death of American hegemony are premature.

1. The Study of Global Political Economy

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Transnational Corporation ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Complex Interdependence ◽  
The World

This chapter provides an overview of the current state of the world economy. The contemporary international economic system is more closely integrated than in any previous era. The global financial crisis and its aftermath provide a clear illustration of the relationship between trade, finance, international institutions, and the difficulties that governments face in coping with the problems generated by complex interdependence. The chapter then traces how the world economy evolved to reach its present state. Before 1945, the spectacular increase in economic integration that had occurred over the previous century was not accompanied by institutionalized governmental collaboration on economic matters. The end of the Second World War marked a significant disjunction: global economic institutions were created, the transnational corporation emerged as a major actor in international economic relations, and patterns of international trade began to change markedly from the traditional North–South exchange of manufactures for raw materials. Since the emergence of global political economy (GPE) as a major subfield of the study of international relations in the early 1970s, GPE scholars have generated an enormous literature that has employed a wide variety of theories and methods. Most introductions to the study of GPE have divided the theoretical approaches to the subject into three categories: liberalism, nationalism, and Marxism.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Dutton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Catholic Mission ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Main Figure

This chapter introduces the book’s main figure and situates him within the historical moment from which he emerges. It shows the degree to which global geographies shaped the European Catholic mission project. It describes the impact of the Padroado system that divided the world for evangelism between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in the 15th century. It also argues that European clerics were drawing lines on Asian lands even before colonial regimes were established in the nineteenth century, suggesting that these earlier mapping projects were also extremely significant in shaping the lives of people in Asia. I argue for the value of telling this story from the vantage point of a Vietnamese Catholic, and thus restoring agency to a population often obscured by the lives of European missionaries.

An Econometric Analysis on the Relationship between Globalisation and Inequality in South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-89
Author(s):  
Jacques de Jongh
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Causality Analysis ◽  
Global Integration ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

Globalisation has had an unprecedented impact on the development and well-being of societies across the globe. Whilst the process has been lauded for bringing about greater trade specialisation and factor mobility many have also come to raise concerns on its impact in the distribution of resources. For South Africa in particular this has been somewhat of a contentious issue given the country's controversial past and idiosyncratic socio-economic structure. Since 1994 though, considerable progress towards its global integration has been made, however this has largely coincided with the establishment of, arguably, the highest levels of income inequality the world has ever seen. This all has raised several questions as to whether a more financially open and technologically integrated economy has induced greater within-country inequality (WCI). This study therefore has the objective to analyse the impact of the various dimensions of globalisation (economic, social and political) on inequality in South Africa. Secondary annual time series from 1990 to 2018 were used sourced from the World Bank Development indicators database, KOF Swiss Economic Institute and the World Inequality database. By using different measures of inequality (Palma ratios and distribution figures), the study employed two ARDL models to test the long-run relationships with the purpose to ensure the robustness of the results. Likewise, two error correction models (ECM) were used to analyse the short-run dynamics between the variables. As a means of identifying the casual effects between the variables, a Toda-Yamamoto granger causality analysis was utilised. Keywords: ARDL, Inequality, Economic Globalisation; Social Globalisation; South Africa

scholarly journals The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on socio-economic and sustainability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueli Wei ◽  
Lijing Li ◽  
Fan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sectional Analysis ◽  
The Impact

Pumping elephantThe COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the lives of people around the world in millions of ways . Due to this severe epidemic, all countries in the world have been affected by all aspects, mainly economic. It is widely discussed that the COVID-19 outbreak has affected the world economy. When considering this dimension, this study aims to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world economy, socio-economics, and sustainability. In addition, the research focuses on multiple aspects of social well-being during the pandemic, such as employment, poverty, the status of women, food security, and global trade. To this end, the study used time series and cross-sectional analysis of the data. The second-hand data used in this study comes from the websites of major international organizations. From the analysis of secondary data, the conclusion of this article is that the impact of the pandemic is huge. The main finding of the thesis is that the social economy is affected by the pandemic, causing huge losses in terms of economic well-being and social capital.

scholarly journals COVID-19 pandemic: A review of the global lockdown and its far-reaching effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 003685042110198
Author(s):  
Helen Onyeaka ◽  
Christian K Anumudu ◽  
Zainab T Al-Sharify ◽  
Esther Egele-Godswill ◽  
Paul Mbaegbu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Education Delivery ◽  
Environmental Air ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact

COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 11th of March 2020, leading to some form of lockdown across almost all countries of the world. The extent of the global pandemic due to COVID-19 has a significant impact on our lives that must be studied carefully to combat it. This study highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on crucial aspects of daily life globally, including; Food security, Global economy, Education, Tourism, hospitality, sports and leisure, Gender Relation, Domestic Violence/Abuse, Mental Health and Environmental air pollution through a systematic search of the literature. The COVID-19 global lockdown was initiated to stem the spread of the virus and ‘flatten the curve’ of the pandemic. However, the impact of the lockdown has had far-reaching effects in different strata of life, including; changes in the accessibility and structure of education delivery to students, food insecurity as a result of unavailability and fluctuation in prices, the depression of the global economy, increase in mental health challenges, wellbeing and quality of life amongst others. This review article highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown across the globe. As the global lockdown is being lifted in a phased manner in various countries of the world, it is necessary to explore its impacts to understand its consequences comprehensively. This will guide future decisions that will be made in a possible future wave of the COVID-19 pandemic or other global disease outbreak.

From the Colonial to Feminist IR: Feminist IR Studies, the Wider FSS/GPE Research Agenda, and the Questions of Value, Valuation, Security, and Violence

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Agathangelou
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Forms Of Violence

International relations (IR) feminists have significantly impacted the way we analyze the world and power. However, as Cynthia Enloe points out, “there are now signs—worrisome signs—that feminist analysts of international politics might be forgetting what they have shared” and are “making bricks to construct new intellectual barriers. That is not progress” (2015, 436). I agree. The project/process that has led to the separation/specialization of feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist global political economy (FGPE) does not constitute progress but instead ends up embodying forms of violence that erase the materialist bases of our intellectual labor's divisions (Agathangelou 1997), the historical and social constitution of our formations as intellectuals and subjects. This amnesiac approach evades our personal lives and colludes with those forces that allow for the violence that comes with abstraction. These “worrisome signs” should be explained if we are to move FSS and FGPE beyond a “merger” (Allison 2015) that speaks only to some issues and some humans in the global theater.

The world economy

1998 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
Nigel Pain
Keyword(s):  
Capital Market ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Domestic Demand ◽  
The World ◽  
Asian Economies ◽  
Trade Growth ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Capital Market

Developments in the Asian economies have clearly begun to be felt in the wider global economy in recent months. It has always been expected that the OECD economies would be affected by the aftermath of the capital market turmoil last year, although the timing and magnitude of the impact was difficult to predict. Domestic demand in the affected Asian economies has proved much weaker than expected, with the effects magnified by a continued downturn in Japan. GDP fell by 5¾ per cent in Korea in the first quarter of this year and by 1¼ per cent in Japan. The aggregate volume of merchandise imports in Asia is expected to decline by around 5½ per cent this year, with falls of up to 25 per cent in countries such as Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. This largely accounts for our projected decline in world trade growth to under 6 per cent this year from an estimated 9¾ per cent in 1997.

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