GPE lecture 1: introduction

International Political Economy (IPE)

Primacy of states/interstate interactions. Studies the interaction between the economic (=production) and the political (=power).

Global Political Economy (GPE)

global system in which states are not the only actors à also private (transnational) actors (era of globalization)

How is the Global economy is changing in fundamental ways?

1. Companies are now more powerful than ever before.

2. With the rise of big tech, we go beyond capitalism because they get less competitors.

3. The rise of China and challenging new investments.

Since 2008 the GPE/IPE is subject to a twofold transformation?

1. A global power shift: from a global political economy dominated by the US (as the hegemon) to one increasingly transformed by the rise of China and shaped by ensuing Sino-US rivalry (= refers to the strategic, economic, technological, ideological, and geopolitical competition between the United States and China for influence in the global political economy).
2. From a trend of ongoing neoliberal globalization to a possible end of neoliberalism and reversal of globalization.

Neoliberal globalization

used to denote a form of globalization that really was about

1.the expansion of free markets
2. transcending of border
3. market integration/expansion
4. economic liberalisation.

What characterizes this different kind of fragmented globalization of today?

1. shifting patterns in world trade (less trade between US and China)

2. economic/trade/industrial policies are increasingly linked to questions of national security and geopolitical power by politicians.

3. If we talk about trade, it is not merely about the economy anymore, but it now has to be (geo) political.

How doe sthe state vs market dynamic work?

—> States need funding through tax and a market economy provides that.
—> Markets always need and cannot function without the state. Institutions, money backed up by the state (central banks), infrastructure, education.

What are the rival perspectives in IPE?

1. (economic) liberalism

2. Mercantilism (realsim)

3. Structuralism (Marxism)