Chapter 13: International Political Economy

Commodification

Turning something/someone into nothing more than a commodity (an object for sale)

Commodity Fetishism

An understanding of the economy as based on market relationships between commodities rather than social relationships between people

Everyday Life

Daily activities & routines that are:

1) Subordinated to the imperatives of capitalism

2) Reproduce the status quo in society

Exchange Rates

The rate at which currency in one denomination (e.g., US dollars) is exchanged for currency in another denomination (e.g., British pounds)

Foreign Currency

Money in a denomination different from your own

Gross Domestic Product

The total measurable output of the national economy, valued in money terms

Hierarchies of Difference 

The stratification of status and wealth along the lines of race, gender, class, nation, and other socially constructed categories, and the normalization of these inequalities

Inflation

The increase in price levels without change of the underlying value, often over a short time period

International Political Economy

The study of power and wealth across countries

Market

The physical or virtual site where goods and services are exchanged, but also a way of organizing economic relations

Microfinance

Loans and savings instruments targeted at individuals and groups with no or little access to banking services

Remittance Economies

Funds that migrant workers send back to households located in their home country

Social Construction

Collective understandings that are the basis for shared assumptions about the world and how it works

Social Reproduction 

The socially necessary work that is central to the production of life itself, including biological reproduction, caring for and maintaining households and intimate relationships, and the reproduction of labor and collective community