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GPE First Half Lecture Notes
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Lectures notes for the first half of Global Political Economy .
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GPE Lecture NotesLecture 1: What is GPE?
Classical Political Economy
Laissez Faire economic theory (allow to do) Français
- Developed in Britain in late 18th and mid-19th centuries
- Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill
Commerce is a natural part of humanity
Market Mechanism:
- Competition between producers reduces prices and increases efficiency
- Value of products falls, the diversity of products increases, and society is enriched
- State intervention leads to inefficiency and corruption.
Invisible Hand:
- As people bargain and socialize, their separate interests may align as this is led by an
invisible hand to mutual benefit.
Critical Political Economy
- Developed in mid-19th and early 20th centuries as a critique of classical economies
- Karl Marx, Fredrich List, Karl Polanyi
- Political economy studies interaction between politics and economics
- Discussing relationship between political power and creation of wealth across territorial
borders.
- Where does notion of self-regulating markets come from?
- Are self-regulating markets natural with laissez-faire coming into existence because of
individual freedom?
- Or was laissez-faire and self-regulating market planned and enforced by State and social
forces?
Antonio Gramsci: ‘Economic activity belongs to the civil society, and that the state must not
intervene to regulate it. Since in actual reality civil society and state are one and the same, it must
be made clear that laissez-faire too is a form of state regulation, introduced and maintained by
legislative and coercive means.’
Karl Polanyi: ‘Even those who wished most ardently to free the state from all necessary duties,
and whose whole philosophy demanded the restriction of state activities, could not but entrust
the self-same state with the new powers, organs, and instruments for the establishment of laissez-
faire.’
IPE
Splitting of disciplines in International Economics and International Politics (early to mid-20th
century
- International Economics: analysis of benefits of free trade.
, - International Politics: Analysis of war and peace.
IPE developed in 1960s and 1970s in US
- Part of discipline of IR
- Challenged the separation of international economics and international politics
- Focuses on politics of inter-state economic relations.
IPE ignores:
- Many non-state actors
- Many processes beyond the interplay between national states or governments
Meaning of ‘global’ vs ‘international:
Global: Refers to processes impact across the world (not only governments or organizations).
- Sources of authority are multiple (mix of organizational types)
Authority can be claimed both:
- Public organizations (states and intergovernmental organizations)
- Multinational enterprises (elite groups, think tanks, and NGOs).
Need to look at power relations beyond inter-states (marginalized and oppressed groups).
GPE
- Influenced by classical critical political economy
- But separation of ‘politics’ and ‘economy’ is insufficient
- What is GPE: Study of the forms of power (economic, political, material and social)
which shape how the world works.
- Subject of GPE: World Economy (or global capitalism).
GPE is essentially the study of forms of power (economic, material, political and social) which
shape how the world economy operates.
Social foundation of the world economy:
- Economics, sociology, politics, development studies, geography, anthropology
- Classical and critical political economy traditions did this.
GPE is a multidisciplinary approach
GPE and Eurocentrism
- GPE criticizes IPE for being dominated by the masculinized, White, Eurocentric
perspectives
- However, GPE has not gone beyond these perspectives completely:
- GPE still largely focuses on Anglo-American world, Western Europe and parts of East
Asia.
- Dominated by scholars from North America, UK and Australia.
- Calling for a genuinely ‘global’ field of study:
- Bringing different perspectives from scholars in other parts of the world.
, - Focusing on topics such as gender, social reproduction, race, colonialism, nature.
- Works of feminist, postcolonial scholars have contributed to this.
What are the main theoretical traditions in GPE?
Theoretical traditions in GPE
Liberal Approaches:
- Individuals are the main actors in the world economy
- Capital Centered, looks at private firms impact on world economy.
- Examples:
- Neoclassical economies
- New institutional economies
Statist Approaches
- Methodological nationalism
- State-centered
- Examples:
- Neorealism
- Developmental state theory
Critical Approaches
- Globalist Methodology
- Marginalized groups-centered
- Examples: Marxism
- Feminism
- Postcolonialism
Deploying different concepts and ideas
Adopting different ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions, thus
leading to different understandings of issues and topics
Example: Hegemony
- Statist Perspective: Leading state in global economy and interstate conflict
- Liberal Approaches: Leading state but cooperation through international norms and
organizations
- Critical Approaches (Marxism): Formation of a global common sense, benefiting
transnational elites.
Ontology: ‘What is out there’ in the world that we study
Ontological positions:
1. ‘Realism or Materialism’: different components of the world we study ‘really’ out there
2. ‘Constructivism: different components of the world are ‘constructed’ in our heads
(through the prism of language and our perspective)
Set of assumptions we make about the world
- Actors in GPE: Individuals, groups, firms or governments?
, - Topics: ‘global market’, ‘firms,’ ‘patriarchy’ or social movements?
Many topics are marginalized because of ontological assumptions
Epistemology and Methodology
Epistemology: How knowledge can be acquired
Epistemological differences acquiring and synthesizing knowledge with regard to validity, scope
and methods
- Realism/ Materialism: Objectivity and objective scholars
- Constructivism: Subjectivity and subjective scholars (geography, race, gender and class).
Methodology: Gathering information and the forms of processing the information for analysis.
GPE methodologies: Methodological individualism, methodological nationalism, and
methodological globalism
Methods in GPE:
- Qualitative methods: interviews, observation, archival analysis
- Quantitative methods: statistical; analyses such as regression
Some GPE scholars use mixed methods
GPE: Aiming for a genuinely ‘global’ field of study by not only focusing on Global North, state,
finance, trade, production.
- Also looking at blind spots in GPE and marginalized regions and groups:
- Historicizing formation of world economy (e.g. colonialism)
- Global South
- Questions of labor, race, gender and nature in global economy
Lecture 2: Theoretical Traditions in GPE: Liberal, Statist and Critical Approaches
Which theoretical tradition in GPE provides a more comprehensive understanding of the
challenges currently faced by the global world economy?
Theories and fact
- Issues/topics/events are interpreted through competing theoretical explanations
- Facts do not exist independently of explanatory frameworks
- Theories help determine which facts are most important
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