International Political Economy and Southern Africa

Abstract

This chapter has three interrelated concerns. First, it seeks to establish the scope and substance of International Political Economy (IPE) as a distinct field of study within ‘the broad’ discipline of international relations (IR). Second, it will attempt to distil or tease out the theoretical implications from this growing field of specialization for the study of international relations in Southern Africa, especially in relation to the changing role of the state vis-a-vis market forces in the regional political economy. Third, it will assess the prospects for Southern African development by examining the opportunities, constraints and options that might be available for the region to build its competitive advantage in the contemporary world economy. Here the main emphasis is on the possible role that South Africa might play in that envisaged project of regional structural transformation. The chapter contextualizes these issues by relating them to three main trends in the world economy which are of significance for Southern Africa, and indeed, for the study of IPE in general. These trends are globalization, regionalization and the marginalization of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in world politics and trade. The chapter examines each of these interrelated processes and asks what are the relative roles of the state, capital and labour in this changing architecture of power and wealth in the modern world. Specifically, it closely examines the argument that the authority, power and autonomy of the state has been eroded to such an extent that it can no longer be regarded as a key actor in domestic and international politics, especially in matters of domestic economic policy.