A system of mutual dependence and antagonism: exploring the potential of uneven and combined development within Global Political Economy

Abstract

U&CD scholarship has made vital conceptual and analytical contributions to international relations and international historical sociology scholarship during recent decades. However, so far, it has mainly focused on the longue durée of capitalist transitions rather than contemporary analyses of the dynamics, crises and policy shifts within the global political economy. A small body of literature has recently begun to apply a U&CD conceptual toolkit towards just such ends. In this special issue, we showcase a range of original thought and empirical work which advances the U&CD perspective within the growing and critically oriented field of global political economy. Transcending the pitfalls of orthodox liberal and realist approaches, U&CD draws a direct link between ruptures, contradictions and crises in the global economy and its ongoing division into a multiplicity of nominally sovereign territorial political units. Focusing on a breadth of divisions and antagonisms across lines of class, race, gender and nationality, the articles contained herein point to the immense potential for creative applications of U&CD to play a role in GPE scholarship as it emerges from the grip of the stifling orthodoxies of international political economy.