Two concepts of international political economy - Robert W. Cox, Production Power and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, New York: Columbia University Press, 1987, pp. 500+ xxii; - Robert Gilpin, with the assistance of Jean M. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 450 + xiv.

Abstract

Robert Gilpin and Robert Cox are exemplars of respectively, the Realist and Marxist traditions in the study of international political economy. The purpose of this review is to examine critically some of the key ideas and arguments in these two authors' work. It relates this discussion to the potential for development in each tradition and for the field more generally. At the outset it is worth saying that while both books represent first-rate scholarship they also reflect different periods of gestation and methods of production.1 Of the two, I believe that Cox's work is the more original and imaginative; it offers an avenue towards a reflexive, broad-ranging and consistent theory of international political economy.