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Global Political Economy Final Exam SummaryLecture 7
A picture of the globe: you don’t see borders. They are a social construct.
Paradoxes of our times
- Unprecedented wealth (incomes increasing), widespread insecurity, inequality.
- ‘Mastery of nature’, ability to manipulate nature, however world-scale
ecological catastrophe.
- New uncertainties, particularly in the realm of politics. Problems with
institutions.
Is the World Economy in crisis? – Some benefit and some don’t. – Wasn’t the world
already in crisis? We are just more aware of it now.
Crisis (definition)
- Vitally important, decisive stage in progress of anything;
- Situation in which decisive change (better/worse) is imminent;
- Applied especially to difficulty, insecurity, suspense in politics, economy.
- So, in what sense is world economy in crisis?
“The crisis this time…”
- Possibly and overused term, particularly popular among social critics.
- Calling to question a whole set of arrangements, concerns (Clause Offe 1985).
o How to adjust them?
- Whether a crisis may depend on who one asks, a crisis for whom?
What is global political economy?
- Addresses the world economy, its development, dynamics, effects.
o Assumes politics & economy may not be understood independently.
- Draws on multiple, sometimes rival theoretical traditions.
o Rejects key assumptions of economics, draws on certain insights.
- A multidisciplinary and in respects post-disciplinary field of study (old, recent
and changing). About variety of experiences that constitute world economy.
‘Economic globalisation’- Realisation of world market
- Expansion, intensification of cross-border ties.
- Increased integration and interdependence.
- Facilitated by politics and institutional change.
- Facilitated by advances in transport, ICT, financial instruments.
- Limits on scope of national economic management.
- Difficult for states to act independently, everything is affected by globalisation.
Social foundations of the world market
- Historical roots of the contemporary world market.
1
, - Centred on (endless) accumulation and circulation of capital.
- Dynamic, growing, developmentally indeterminate. We don’t know where the
world economy is going.
- Variegated and transitory… e.g. creative destruction. How globalisation has
unfolded differently across countries.
Global Political Economy
- Affirms social, political foundations of the world market.
o Historically grounded, attention to path dependence (historical path
limits possibilities), agency.
- Recognises states’ unique roles, limits of state-centred analysis.
o Emphasizes increasingly transnational features of world market.
- Multi-scalar in its approach (focus of analysis: global, national, local scales).
o Does not assume a top-down dynamic, regional dynamics.
Economics, IPE, and GPE (foundational perspectives)
- Classical Political Economy (Ricardo, Weber, Marx), quite diverse.
- International Political Economy
o Distinguished from economics.
o Associated with inter-state analysis.
Four major traditions within GPE (disagree about solutions)
1. Liberal, neo-classical political economy.
2. ‘State-centred’ or ‘developmentalist’.
o States = unique actors, important for developing economy.
3. Critical political economy, developed around critique around liberal PE.
4. Feminist political economy
o Social-fairness, gendered aspects of world economy, not representing
coherent theoretical paradigm. Disagree about solutions.
Neoclassical Economic & GPE
- Markets based on voluntary exchanges.
o Human beings are rational, markets are efficient.
- Free trade produces mutual benefits.
o Markets are efficient and equitable. Expand markets.
o E.g. focus on comparative advantage, factor-prize equalisation.
- A world defined by harmful market *frictions.*
o Relax constraints on trade, government policy, ‘distortions.’
- Recent ‘discovery’ of politics, institutions.
o How (good) institutions come into being, interest in politics.
o Liberal institutionalist theory (e.g. Keohane).
‘The World is Flat’ – ‘The End of Poverty’ (ladder of development)
2
, State-centred/Developmentalist Perspectives
- States in the world economy.
o Assumes inseparability of politics & economics, but…
o Influence of neoclassical economics.
o State centrism.
o You cannot rely on capitalists for long-term investments.
- Theories of state-behaviour – what they do and why?
o State are in two-level games (have domestic/international concerns).
o E.g. states motivated by a singular ‘national interest’.
o How can states be effective.
- Mix of “markets” and political institutions.
o Democratic, authoritarian regimes, etc.
Ha-Joon Chang, ‘Kicking Away the Ladder’. (Developed countries deny access to
development for developing countries)
Critical Political Economy (= layered cake, we live in stratified world)
- Exploitive nature of capitalist social relations.
o World economy founded on unequal exchange.
- Pay attention to countries’ structural modes of integration.
o Difficult to overcome this structure, limited mobility.
- ‘Combined an uneven development.’
o Structural difficulties.
o Internal processes of exploitation; external processes of dependence.
o Focus on class relations, relations between competing interests between
countries.
Development of Underdevelopment
- Poor countries not originally/naturally that way/underdeveloped.
- Character of historical relations.
o Modes of integration into world economy.
o E.g. the British colonial architecture.
- Peripherality refers to a condition featuring:
o Internal processes of exploitation; external processes of dependence.
International division of labour
- Periphery
o ‘Developing areas’ = underdeveloped countries = South.
o ‘Extreme peripheries.’
- Centre/Core
o ‘Industrialised economies’ = ‘advanced’ countries = North.
- Semi-peripheries (Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory)
3
, o A middle position with limited mobility.
o E.g. middle income countries, middle income trap.
The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism –
Joan Robinson
Feminist perspectives
- Why a feminist perspective?
o Sex is not the same as gender and not the same as gender relations.
o Gender is about power relations, differences, conflicts.
o E.g. Care: for love or money – or both? (Folbre)
- But is there one or many feminist perspectives?
o Intersectionality, the way in which group membership affect
experiences and opportunities.
o Third World Women = underdeveloped.
- Racial and economic dominance.
o Concrete manifestations (e.g. feminisation of poverty).
o Ways of thinking (e.g. colonial legacy, modernity).
Critical geography
- Focus on geographic diversity.
o Focus on variegation across countries.
- Increasing interest in transnational flows.
o Obsolescence of national-focus only studies.
- Problem of scale – global, national, subnational, local.
‘Research programs’ or Religions?
- Core assumptions – never questioned articles of faith. E.g. never question that
capitalism is exploitive.
- A set of claims based on assumptions – e.g. human behaviour, markets, nature of
states, capitalism.
- Akin to religious traditions.
o Creation stories, explanations of world.
o Normative implications, orientation (we ought to..).
Questions in GPE
- What do we observe? – Patterns across time/place.
- Why do we observe it? – Theoretical explanation.
- So what? – Significance.
- What should ‘we’ doe about it? – Normative implications.
Understandings of GPE
- Ravenhill (2014, 18):
4
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