Plurality of political economy approaches to the global division of labor

Abstract

The chapter highlights the relevance of the international division of labour for a critical politico-economic analysis of public policy. Traditionally, three analytical approaches have competed for dominance in the interpretation and evaluation of the international division of labour: liberal International Political Economy, economic nationalism, and historical materialism. Since the 1970s, a fourth approach has been gaining ground: Feminist Political Economy. Scherrer shows that the global division of labour is analysed quite differently within each of these theoretical frameworks. Not surprisingly, liberal International Political Economy is very much in favour of the division of labour. Economic nationalist approaches, which go back to Friedrich List, are not critical of economic liberalism per se, but argue that an international division of labour based on free trade primarily serves industrialized states. The third strand, historical materialism or Marxian political economy, focuses on power relations embedded in the capitalist mode of production in general. For Feminist Political Economy, gender relations are the starting point for analysis. It insists that the international division of labour is already always a gendered division of labour.