Study Of International Political Economy Research Articles

Mundane Circular Economy Policy: Peta Kebijakan dan Kriteria Sekolah Sirkular di Level Pendidikan Dasar

This research introduces the concept of "Mundane Circular Economy Policy" (MCEP) in the study of International Political Economy (IPE) and explains how this paper relates to broader IR issues such as sustainability, global economic dynamics, and global education policies. The research methodology employed is Multi Criteria Mapping, which analyzes complex and uncertain issues like Circular Schools. Through the participation of 22 primary school principals in Central Java, three outputs were generated from this research: (1) a map of circular school policies, highlighting 58 policy initiatives that implement the 5R principles (Reduce, Rethink, Reuse, Repair, Recycle); (2) a map of assessment criteria for circular policies; and (3) a mapping of optimism and pessimism in implementing the 5R principles in circular schools. These outputs have significant implications within the context of IPE, as they demonstrate how schools can act as agents in creating economically and politically sustainable environments.

NASIONALISME VAKSIN SEBAGAI PRAKTIK NEOMERKANTILISME: ANALISA STUDI EKONOMI POLITIK INTERNASIONAL

At first the health issue was the main task for each country to each of its people. But now the health issue has become part of a global issue whose dynamics have become the focus of various international collaborations. In this case, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been running for more than a year in the world since the outbreak in China, has now found various innovations regarding vaccines to prevent the spread of Covid-19. This innovation in the production of the Covid-19 vaccine is controlled by various international pharmaceutical companies. However, in terms of the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine globally, it appears that several developed countries have implemented protectionist approach with the aim of securing the availability of the Covid-19 vaccine for their domestic needs. In this study, the author would like to explain that the Vaccine Nationalism practices that occurred during the Covid 19 pandemic era were a policy development from the perspective of Neomercantilism in the study of international political economy. This article was written using a qualitative research method with a descriptive type of research. The results of this study explain that the practice of vaccine nationalism is the steps taken by developed countries in treating vaccines as a strategic commodity, not as a global public commodity. Developing and less developed countries have the potential to experience barriers to accessing the availability of vaccines in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Catastrophic Beasts and How to Study Them: Researching Illicit Financial Activities in International Political Economy

There is relatively less attention to illicit financial activities in the International Political Economy (IPE) studies, and it is quite ambiguous how to study these illicit activities. American IPE’s materialistic nature and state-centric approach miss essential features/relations of these illicit activities because they are neither materialistic nor state-centric. On the other hand, the British school is more suitable than American IPE because of its inclusive and multidisciplinary research and its engagement with real-world situations. However, its normative agenda and its motivation to judge rather than explain can be tricky in researching illicit activities. I argue that Constructivist IPE is the most suitable school because of its dynamism and concepts, namely meaning, cognition, uncertainty, and subjectivity. Utilizing these four concepts, researchers can conduct more detailed and more fruitful analyses regarding illicit financial activities. Showing why the Constructivist IPE is the most suitable school of IPE to research with a case study on tax havens’ status after 9/11, I assert that there should be more research in illicit financial activities in the IPE studies.

The Pandemic, the Economy, and Environmental Change: Six Implications for the Study of International Political Economy

What is the relationship between the global COVID-19 pandemic, the economic recession that followed in its wake, and the ongoing degradation of the global environment? What are key takeaways from this relationship for scholars of international political economy? This article identifies a trialectical relationship between these three forces, addresses ways that the trialectic presents moments of both continuity and change in the trajectory of the global political economy, and invokes Arundhati Roy’s concept of “the pandemic as portal” to foreground the need for scholars of international political economy to tease out and promote new political economic ideals that improve humanity’s resilience to future destabilization risks.

Race and Identity in the Study of International Political Economy

Introduction to Race and Identity in the Study of International Political Economy Global Research in International Political Economy (GRIPE) Webinar and commentaries Organized 30 September 2020

A New Decision Calculus: Race in International Political Economy Studies

On September 30, 2020, several of us dialed in to attend a webinar panel discussion on “Race, Identity and Culture in the (Post-)Globalization Era.” The participants shared their thoughts on how and why race factors into international political and economic processes. In the spirit of addressing the topic from a political economy perspective, it seems worthwhile to outline the decision calculus that determines why considering race in international political economy (IPE) research is a good idea. If the benefit b of accounting for race times the probability p of success outweighs the costs c weighted by the probability (1 - p) of failure, race should be a key component of IPE research moving forward.

The IMF's Financial Catch-22: Global Banker or Lender of Last Resort?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has dual institutional roles: a steward of international financial stability and a global banker safeguarding the resources of its sovereign shareholders. But, how does the IMF behave when its balance sheet becomes exposed to higher-than-usual credit risk, creating a financial catch-22? We expect the IMF varies its lending behavior, based on the nature of sovereign credit crises. When there is high contagion risk, the IMF aims to preserve global financial stability as a lender of last resort by extending large loans, notwithstanding its balance sheet strains. The IMF employs policy conditionality to hedge its lending risk, but prioritizes alleviating global market turmoil over program compliance. When market contagion is contained, however, the IMF is more likely to act as a traditional banker, suspending programs for non-compliance. Ironically, given its tendency to forgive non-compliance as a lender of last resort, our theoretical framework suggests that the Fund intensifies its moral hazard problem. We test our theoretical priors by conducting a comparative case study analysis of IMF decision-making over time for two of its largest borrowers: Argentina and Greece. Leveraging volumes of hundred-paged minutes from IMF executive board meeting archives and extensive field research interviews, we illustrate the lending stances of IMF directors evolve in response to changes in global contagion risk. By examining the IMF’s own institutional agency under high financial risk, this study offers new insights for the study of international political economy and international organizations.

The Treatment of Global Environmental Change in the Study of International Political Economy: An Analysis of the Field's Most Influential Survey Texts

AbstractHuman activities taking place as part of postwar globalization have had a profound and intensifying impact on the global environment. In turn, global environmental change (GEC) is becoming an increasingly influential force in shaping the global political economy, with wide-ranging impacts on trade, finance, development, growth, governance, and interstate relations. This article examines how GEC is described and explained to students of international political economy (IPE), by reviewing the field's most influential survey texts. It finds that while most of the texts reflect the broader field's approach to GEC fairly accurately (in depicting GEC as an “emerging issue” warranting further study), this article problematizes this framing and argues that GEC ought to be given more urgent attention. That is, despite offering a tacit understanding of GEC's increasing influence as a central force shaping the global political economy (and vice versa), there remains an opportunity to better explain this dialectic to students within the field's primary texts.

Economic Liberalism and the State: Dismantling the Myth of Naïve Laissez-Faire

ABSTRACTThe article offers a critique of the prevailing understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism and classic nineteenth-century liberalism in contemporary international political economy (IPE) and offers a redefinition inspired by Polanyi and Gramsci. Within critical IPE studies, a consensus has emerged that neoliberalism cannot be reduced to a simple attempt to roll back the economy and let loose free-market forces. However, this insight relies on contrasting neoliberalism with a classic liberalism, that is, a simple attempt to implement just this naïve laissez-faire ideology. In contrast, this article argues that nineteenth-century liberalism is also characterised by an active use of state and legislative power. Through a historical study of two cases from nineteenth-century Britain, Poor Law reform and the Gold Standard, the paper will argue that state action played a central role even during the heyday of laissez-faire liberalism. With a starting point in Polanyi’s dictum that ‘laissez-faire was planned’, this reinvestigation will point towards a need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the distinctions between economic theory, ideology, and practical policy, as well as pointing towards a general reinterpretation of the role of the state in liberal economic ideology.

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

AbstractThe dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.

Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday: From Bananas to Bingo

Feminist studies of political economy have long pointed to the multifaceted ways in which global transformations are constituted by deeply gendered economic practices at the everyday level. Nonetheless, the increased analytical focus on the everyday within the study of international political economy (IPE) frequently fails to connect with feminist theories and gendered approaches. In this introductory essay, we argue that any discussion of a ‘turn’ towards the everyday in IPE must acknowledge the role of feminist contributions that predate, and indeed make possible, this shift in IPE scholarship's analytical gaze towards the everyday. We map out what might be understood as feminist political economies of the everyday—highlighting the points of connection between feminist scholarship on the everyday, as well as the ways in which feminist scholars engage with the notion of an everyday political economy in quite distinct and diverse ways—a diversity that reflects the methodological and theoretical pluralism of feminist political economy scholarship as well as the ever broadening geographical scope of feminist research.

Which of the BRICs Will Wield the Most Influence in Twenty-Five Years? Russia Reconsidered

Edward Mansfield (this issue) offers a twofold appraisal of the significance of rising powers—defined here as the BRIC countries—for the study of international political economy (IPE). On the one hand, current approaches in IPE suffice to explain the behavior of rising powers since none threatens the present architecture of the global economy or the positions of the United States and European Union (EU). On the other hand, one rising power, China, has managed to surpass the others in military and economic capabilities, warranting a closer examination of the linkages between political economy and national security. While this view seems eminently reasonable, I argue that forecasting the relative material capabilities of the BRICs over a longer period, say over the next quarter century, requires stretching the boundaries of IPE to pay close attention to incremental changes in demographic patterns and in the geographic distribution of vital resources. Such factors are difficult to capture in the ontologies of conventional IPE theories; yet, over the long run, they may well determine the upper limits for a rising power's capabilities in the global economy. With this in mind, I offer the following tentative proposition: Russia is the BRIC country with the best prospects for boosting both its global economic clout and its population's living standards over the next quarter century.

International Organizations as Drivers of Telecommunications Liberalization in Eastern Europe, in Northern Europe-and in the Whole World?

Privatization of state-owned enterprises, liberalization of markets, and re-regulation are secular trends of the last thirty years. Hence, a vast literature in political science, international relations, and international political economy studies the causes and consequences of the new “regulatory capitalism” (Levi-Faur 2005). Global Markets and Government Regulation in Telecommunications by Kirsten Rodine-Hardy contributes to this literature by directing our attention to the role of international organizations in fostering the diffusion of liberalization. The argument is that liberalization of the telecommunications sector—the establishment of regulatory agencies and the privatization of incumbent operators—is driven by international organizations. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the EU function as forums for information exchange and peer review and facilitate policy learning about institutional innovations (pp. 33–51). Thus, the theoretical argument draws on constructivist reasoning in international relations (Finnemore 1993). International organizations may put pressure on individual countries to comply with, for example, European directives, but (i) there is still leeway for national variation, and (ii) information exchange and socialization are as important as—if not more important than—“hard” coercion (pp. 52–3).

Constructivism and the study of international political economy in China

ABSTRACTThis paper surveys constructivist scholarship in the study of international political economy (IPE) in China. Chinese scholars in the field of IPE have until recently rarely used constructivism as an approach to study IPE for two reasons. The first, like Western IPE, is the short history of constructivism as a theoretical perspective. The second, unlike Western IPE, stems from the long-standing dominance of Marxism, China's official state ideology, in the academic field. In China, Marxism's materialist core shapes the basic research questions of IPE. Unsurprisingly then, constructivist analysis is quite alien to the dominant intellectual discourse in China. Nonetheless, of late, more Chinese scholars have begun to apply constructivist analysis. This paper surveys these developments and is divided into three sections. The first section provides an overview of how Chinese Marxist scholars approach the major issues of IPE as they relate to China. The second section provides an overview of the work of liberal-minded Chinese scholars who work on major IPE issues, another counterpoint to the Marxist school. The third section, which is the major focus of this paper, examines how Chinese scholars have applied the constructivist concepts to study major IPE issues in the Chinese context.

Debating international institutions and global governance: The missing Chinese IPE contribution

ABSTRACTOne of the fundamental questions in the study of international political economy (IPE) is the foundation of order, stability and justice in international politics and economy. The study of international institutions and global governance is part of this larger inquiry. With China's rising importance in the global economic system, it might be expected that IPE scholarship in China would give rise to uniquely ‘Chinese’ approaches to this area of inquiry, approaches informed by China's position in the world and China's rich cultural and intellectual traditions. However, our examination of Chinese scholarship shows that thus far, it has produced little new knowledge and theoretical innovation. Why has this been the case? We argue that it is because (1) as a new field of study, IPE in China – including the study of international institutions and global governance – is still under the strong socialization effect of Western scholarship; and (2) the institutional environment in China constrains the kind of research that promises new insights and innovative perspectives. We also discuss how scholarship in China could contribute to the positive evolution of IPE globally in the future, and the obstacles that may hinder this development.

RIPE, the American School and diversity in global IPE

ABSTRACTOn the occasion of the Review of International Political Economy's 20th anniversary, this paper systematically assesses RIPE's claim to represent an alternative to the ‘mainstream’ study of international political economy (IPE) with several new sources of evidence. The first is the IPE component of a 20-country survey of international relations (IR) faculty, the second a database of books in the field. The third, and most important, is derived from coding 326 RIPE articles published 2000–10 to discover key cleavages and trends. These results are compared with those from prior studies of the 12 IR journals identified as the ‘leading’ journals by the Teaching, Research and International Politics (TRIP) project. The article concentrates on five key issues: paradigmatic orientation, epistemology, methodology, policy orientation, and demography. The results provide ground for scepticism that the ‘American School’ of IPE does or will define the mainstream. The findings further tend to confirm that RIPE has stayed relatively true to its founders’ intentions in representing diversity in the global study of IPE.

Reading the right signals and reading the signals right: IPE and the financial crisis of 2008

ABSTRACTAlthough the meltdown in the American financial system in 2008 created the most profound financial crisis in sixty years, the field of International Political Economy (IPE) has remained curiously silent. More worrisome is the inability of the paradigmatic approach to the study of IPE in the United States – Open Economy Politics (OEP) – to shed much light on the causes of the crisis. We develop the conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty to explain why the rationalist (and largely materialist) “American School” of IPE failed so badly. OEP followed orthodox economics in conflating risk and uncertainty. Preserving the distinction, as constructivist IPE scholars and economic sociologists have done, enables us view the crisis through dual rationalist and sociological optics. Our illustrative evidence, drawn from public (the Federal Open Market Committee of the US Federal Reserve) and private actors (accountants, credit rating agencies, and arbitrage traders) in financial markets, shows that only eclectic approaches that make use of both rationalist and sociological optics give IPE scholars the depth of vision and the breadth of imagination necessary to make sense of the financial crisis of 2008.

What Pivot? International Relations Scholarship and the Study of East Asia

Scholars of international relations (IR) simultaneously believe that their work is policy-relevant and that a gap exists between the academic and policy worlds of IR. Using data from the 2011 Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey and the TRIP journal article database, we explore this disjuncture in one specific area, research on East Asia. If US scholars' work addresses policy-relevant issues, as they believe, we would expect academic work to provide insights on a region that US policy makers have long thought to be growing in strategic importance. We find that academics recognize the strategic significance of East Asia, but comparatively few scholars teach about or do research on the region. Compared with the IR discipline more broadly, published research on East Asia is more paradigmatic, qualitative, and oriented toward the study of international political economy. The neglect of East Asia and the systematic differences in the way it is studied have potentially important consequences for the study and practice of IR.

Law as the Interplay of Ideas, Institutions, and Interests: Using Polyani (and Foucault) to ask TWAIL Questions

AbstractThis paper sketches out some preliminary thoughts on political economy that stem from problematics that emerge from TWAIL. The TWAIL story of international law is one of frustration and disappointment because of the constant exploitation of the Third World despite all the historic changes in international legal ideas and institutions, but it also a story of hope in the moments of resistance. In order to better debate how particular international institutions should be changed or whether particular international institutions should be renounced, I suggest that we need to explicate the theories of political economy embedded within these institutions. Drawing from Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, bringing alongside the work of Michel Foucault, I sketch out one way of conducting a study of international political economy by suggesting that we can think of law as the interplay of ideas, institutions, and interests.

Political Economy and Economic Development in Africa: An Overview

This volume explores the relationship between political economy and economic development in Africa with a view to unravelling, at least part of the reasons why Africa has not been able to register appreciable development despite the perceptible improvement in growth performance since the beginning of this decade. To begin with, the question of whether or not there is a different political economy for developing countries was addressed in the first paper. It is argued that although the policy questions and political processes may differ, the same building blocks of political economy models are relevant for developing and developed countries. The second paper examined the relationship between natural resource rents and foreign aid on one hand and economic development on the other. Analysis and a review of available evidence suggests that both aid and natural resource rents constitute windfalls, natural resource rent is more highly correlated to corruption than aid. The third paper surveyed evidence on the relationship between international political economy (IPE) and economic development in Africa. Focusing on macroeconomic policy, financing for development and trade, the review suggests that ownership is subverted by the dominance of Africa's internal policy debate by its external partners while overall development finance will continue to be dominated by national security interest of Africa's major external partners. Finally, an exploration of lesson learnt from the study of IPE for Africa suggests that the African states are too small and too many, creating a situation where agents lack reliable recourse to the public good of enforced justice for the purposes of economic transactions. Each of the papers call for a variety of research agenda necessary to produce knowledge to guide policies at national, regional and international levels thereby ensuring that the primary purpose of political economy, namely, to enrich the people and the sovereign can be realised in Africa.