10. Global Political Economy

Global Politics ◽

Traditional Role ◽

The North ◽

Role Of The State

This chapter offers an overview of the field of Global Political Economy (GPE)—also known as International Political Economy (IPE). It builds on themes introduced in previous chapters, including connections with theories of global politics. These are discussed from a historical perspective to enable a better appreciation of how ideas, practices, and institutions develop and interact over time. These theories arose substantially within a European context, although the extent to which these may be applied uncritically to issues of political economy in all parts of the globe must be questioned. Significant issues for GPE include trade, labour, the interaction of states and markets, the nexus between wealth and power, and the problems of development and underdevelopment in the global economy, taking particular account of the North–South gap. The chapter then discusses the twin phenomena of globalization and regionalization and the way in which these are shaping the global economy and challenging the traditional role of the state. An underlying theme of the chapter is the link between economic and political power.

Patents and Development in the New Global Economy

10.1093/oso/9780199593903.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kenneth C. Shadlen

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Case Studies ◽

Global Economy ◽

World Order ◽

Global Politics ◽

Pharmaceutical Patents ◽

Key Points ◽

Comparative Case Studies ◽

Privately Owned

The concluding chapter reviews the main findings from the comparative case studies, synthesizes the main lessons, considers extensions of the book’s explanatory framework, and looks at emerging challenges that countries face in adjusting their development strategies to the new global economy marked by the private ownership of knowledge. Review of the key points of comparison from the case studies underscores the importance of social structure and coalitions for analyses of comparative and international political economy. Looking forward, this chapter supplements the book’s analysis of the political economy of pharmaceutical patents with discussion of additional ways that countries respond to the monumental changes that global politics of intellectual property have undergone since the 1980s. The broader focus underscores fundamental economic and political challenges that countries face in adjusting to the new world order of privately owned knowledge, and points to asymmetries in global politics that reinforce these challenges.

22. Global Political Economy

Introduction to Politics ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198820611.003.0022 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 508-534

Author(s):

Stephanie Lawson

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

World War Ii ◽

International Economic Order ◽

Post Cold War ◽

The North ◽

System P ◽

Liberal Political Economy ◽

Political Economic

This chapter provides an overview of the field of Global Political Economy (GPE), also known as International Political Economy (IPE). It begins with a discussion of how GPE/IPE has developed as a major focus of study within the broader field of global politics over the last four decades. It then considers the rise of mercantilism as a theory of GPE, along with its relationship to nationalism and colonialism. It also examines the emergence of liberal political economy, Marxism and critical IPE, and the international economic order after World War II. In particular, it looks at the Bretton Woods system, which emerged after the war as a compromise between liberalism and nationalism. The chapter concludes with an analysis of international political, economic, and social problems associated with the North–South gap, globalization and regionalization in the post-Cold War period, and financial crises that rocked the global economic system.

Reexamining the “obsolescing bargain”: a study of Canada's National Energy Program

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818300004501 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 139-165 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Barbara Jenkins

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Economic Development ◽

World Economy ◽

International Markets ◽

The State ◽

International Capital ◽

Contemporary World ◽

Role Of The State

Rarely has an issue in the field of international political economy aroused more controversy than the role of the state in economic development. Much of the debate centers on theories of dependency which portray the state as a captive of the “universal standards” of international markets, constrained by its position in the international capitalist economy. In response to this provocative stance, there has been a recent renaissance of theories which see the state as a prominent force in the contemporary world economy. Numerous authors from a wide ideological spectrum have endorsed this argument. In their view, the state is not a helpless puppet subject to the whims of international capital and a comprador bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is a key economic player capable of using international capital to forward its own interests.

Introduction: domestic and international forces and strategies of foreign economic policy

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818300018622 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 587-606 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Peter J. Katzenstein

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Economic Policy ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Theoretical Orientation ◽

Bureaucratic Politics ◽

Nation State ◽

Foreign Economic Policy ◽

The North ◽

Oil Crisis

Why does a common challenge, such as the oil crisis, elicit different national responses in the international political economy? The domestic structure of the nation-state is a critical intervening variable without which the interrelation between international interdependence and political strategies cannot be understood. The essay justifies this volume's concentration on a few advanced industrial states of the North; from a broader historical perspective it looks briefly at the interaction of international and domestic forces in the shaping of the international political economy; it examines two theories of foreign policy (international approaches and bureaucratic politics) in order to highlight the gap which this volume intends to fill; and it details the theoretical orientation informing the essays which follow.

Informality in International Political Economy

The Oxford Handbook of International Political Economy ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198793519.013.7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Felicity Vabulas

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

International Finance ◽

Global Economy ◽

Task Force ◽

Global Politics ◽

Intergovernmental Organizations ◽

Informal Governance ◽

Block Chain ◽

Financial Action Task

Informality is increasingly defining outcomes in an international political economy that has previously been defined by precise treaties and large bureaucracies. Nonetheless, research in the budding area of “informality in IPE” is still nascent. This chapter brings some cohesion to the literature by discussing how soft law, informal governance, and informal intergovernmental organizations are affecting our global economy. By overviewing informality in the areas of international finance, international trade, and international economic institutions, it underscores how important bodies such as the G7, Financial Action Task Force, and Basel Committee are increasingly shaping how states interact. It underscores that informality is neither normatively better nor worse than its formal brethren, but instead that informality will have different effects on international relations. The chapter ends by highlighting ripe areas for more “informality in IPE” research going forward, including a better understanding of how topics such as block chain technologies, informal sanctions, and informal migration affect global politics. Nonetheless, a deeper investigation of these important areas will continue to be challenged by the things that define informality itself—a lack of transparency, working around the rules, and fluidity.

Mercantilist and Realist Perspectives on the Global Political Economy

10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.260 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel W. Drezner

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Global Economy ◽

World Politics ◽

Foreign Economic Policy ◽

Economic Interests ◽

Role Of The State ◽

National Economic ◽

Distribution Of Power ◽

Political Spectrum

Mercantilism and realism would appear to go hand in glove with each other. If realism represents both a systemic worldview and explanatory model for world politics, then mercantilism would appear to be the paradigm’s default foreign economic policy doctrine. And, to be sure, there are obvious and strong areas of overlap. Both paradigms stress the autonomous role of the state—and warn against capture by particularistic interests. Both also stress the conditioning effects of the distribution of power in defining national economic interests. Despite these constants, however, over time, the two approaches diverged more and more. Most modern-day writers who sympathize with mercantilism do so from perspectives ranging from left-leaning social democracy to more radical Gramscian critiques. Realists, on the other hand, have tended to gravitate towards the conservative, Burkean side of the political spectrum. While realists and mercantilists might agree on the role that power plays in the global economy, they do not necessarily agree on the normative implications of that insight. Paradoxically, as realism has acquired a more “scientific” cast, it has become less influential in international political economy (IPE) scholarship. For realism to maintain its relevancy in IPE, it must reacquire its deftness in incorporating nonstructural variables into its explanatory framework. The paradigm retains some useful predictive power for how systemic political variables affect global economic outcomes, but it is of little use in discussing the reverse causal effects.

20. Global Political Economy

10.1093/hepl/9780198704386.003.0021 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Stephanie Lawson

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

World War Ii ◽

International Economic Order ◽

Post Cold War ◽

The North ◽

System P ◽

Liberal Political Economy ◽

Political Economic

Globalisation: states, markets and class relations

Historical Materialism ◽

10.1163/156920697100414159 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 150-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Peter Burnham

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Global Economy ◽

Information Technologies ◽

Class Relations ◽

Political Debate ◽

Starting Point ◽

Central Argument ◽

The Relationship

AbstractThe concept of ‘globalisation’ increasingly dominates economic and political debate in the 1990s. However, despite a profusion of commentaries and case studies on aspects of ‘globalisation’ such as ‘Japanisation', ‘Americanisation', ‘McDonaldisation’ and, of course, global information technologies, there are few radical interrogations of the notion of ‘globalisation/internationalisation’ and little discussion of the theoretical implications of recent changes in the global political economy (GPE). The central argument of this paper is that in order to make sense of these developments a broad focus is required which begins by conceptualising the changing nature of relations between national states in the global economy and concludes by understanding these relations in class terms. This is not simply to restate the importance of an international relations or international political economy ‘dimension', since these ‘disciplines’ fail absolutely to relate ‘interstate’ restructuring to the re-composition of class relations. Rather, the aim of the paper is to prompt a more general theoretical reorientation towards understanding the process of international restructuring as one undertaken by national states in an attempt to re-impose tighter labour discipline and recompose the labour/capital relationship. My starting point, therefore, is that global capitalism is still structured as an antagonistic state system, and that many of the changes which characterise the global political economy are introduced by states in an attempt to solve problems that have their roots in labour/capital conflict. In summary form, the paper concludes that the concept of ‘globalisation’ obscures more than it reveals and that Marx's understanding of the relationship between labour, capital and the state remains a more productive starting point for analysing contemporary global processes.

Decentering International Relations: The Continued Wisdom of Latin American Dependency

International Studies Perspectives ◽

10.1093/isp/ekaa007 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 403-423

Author(s):

Diego Miguel Zambrano Márquez

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

International Relations ◽

Latin American ◽

Resource Curse ◽

Global Politics ◽

Dependency Theory ◽

The Status ◽

Core Concepts

Abstract Although many international relations (IR) theory and international political economy textbooks consistently reference dependency theory, it is commonly considered a passé, outdated, or defunct theoretical approach. This paper challenges conventional wisdom, stressing the continued relevance of dependency as an analytical approach. Overall, it argues that Dependency theory represents a successful effort at decentering IR. To do so, it first discusses decentering as an effort to challenge and engage core concepts in IR to transform the “universal” understandings of global politics. In this sense, Dependency theory decentered IR by introducing an understanding of the world in which Western and non-Western spaces are mutually constitutive, highlighting the role of non-core contexts in creating and maintaining the status quo of the universal. Second, the paper analyzes the influence of Dependency theory in modern discourses of political economy like the resource curse, globalization, Post-Colonialism, and Post-Developmentalism. These parallelisms show Dependency's effectiveness at decentering IR and transforming the way the discipline studies non-core spaces.

National Liberalisms in Historical Perspective

10.1093/oso/9780190683986.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Mark I. Vail

Keyword(s):

Economic Model ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Source Material ◽

Historical Source ◽

Market Making ◽

Role Of The State ◽

The Face ◽

Political Economic ◽

Analytical Frameworks

This chapter analyzes the development of French, German, and Italian liberalism from the nineteenth century to the 1980s, giving particular attention to each tradition’s conceptions of the role of the state and its relationship to groups and individual citizens. Using a broad range of historical source material and the works of influential political philosophers, it outlines the analytical frameworks central to French “statist liberalism,” German “corporate liberalism,” and Italian “clientelist liberalism.” It shows how these evolving traditions shaped the structure of each country’s postwar political-economic model and the policy priorities developed during the postwar boom through the early 1970s and provides conceptual touchstones for the direction and character of these traditions’ evolution in the face of the neoliberal challenge since the 1990s. The chapter demonstrates that each tradition accepted elements of a more liberal economic order while rejecting neoliberalism’s messianic market-making agenda and its abstract and disembedded political-economic vision.