The way that the state, society and the economic market interact is seen to be closely related. This essay will argue this point by discussing the idea of the international political economy (IPE). It will also discuss questions that are asked in IPE. This essay will then suggest three different approaches that are commonly used in IPE to answer the questions that have been posed. Definition of International Political Economy International Political economy is a study that was developed in the late 1970’ s after the 1973 oil crisis(Gilpin,1987). This event alerted various academics and researchers that the international economy was heavily interdependent. The study of the international political economy discusses the interaction of the state, society and the economic marke and how these disciplines affect the international system. It also suggests that the three …show more content…
Thus, the questions that are posed relate to the interaction of these disciplines. As stated in the introduction, this part of the essay will suggest four questions that could be posed when analysing the global economy. The first question posed is that of the relationship between the political and the economic market and what it is. The second is how much of a role government should play in the market (Gilpin,1987).The third question is whether the involvement of the government in the market will encourage or hinder economic growth. Lastly, how the world economic market affects the economies of those that are less developed (Gilpin,1987). Although there are many other questions that could be posed in addressing the theory of IPE, this essay has looked at four of them. It will now address the leading approaches and attempt to briefly answer these questions. The three leading approaches of
Wendt, Alexander. Social theory of international politics. 9. printing. ed. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006. Print.
Dennis Pirages and Christine Sylvester (eds.), Transformations in the Global Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1989).
Strange, S. (1994), ‘Wake up Krasner! The world has changed’, Review of International Political Economy, Summer 1994, 1 (2), pp. 209-20, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
To understand the international relations of contemporary society and how and why historically states has acted in such a way in regarding international relations, the scholars developed numerous theories. Among these numerous theories, the two theories that are considered as mainstream are liberalism and realism because the most actors in stage of international relations are favouring either theories as a framework and these theories explains why the most actors are taking such actions regarding foreign politics. The realism was theorized in earlier writings by numerous historical figures, however it didn't become main approach to understand international relations until it replaced idealist approach following the Great Debate and the outbreak of Second World War. Not all realists agrees on the issues and ways to interpret international relations and realism is divided into several types. As realism became the dominant theory, idealistic approach to understand international relations quickly sparked out with failure of the League of Nation, however idealism helped draw another theory to understand international relations. The liberalism is the historical alternative to the realism and like realism, liberalism has numerous branches of thoughts such as neo-liberalism and institutional liberalism. This essay will compare and contrast the two major international relations theories known as realism and liberalism and its branches of thoughts and argue in favour for one of the two theories.
Throughout the chapters assigned, Dicken focuses on the patterns and processes of global shifts, on the forms produced by the globalization of economic activities and on the forces producing those forms. He builds his arguments around three interconnected processes, which in his view are the reasons for reshaping the global economic map. Those are Transnational Corporations (“TNC”), States, and Technology.
Gilpin, Robert. Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.
Balaam, David. Introduction to International Political Economy, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson Education, 2005.
The creation of the study of international relations in the early 20th century has allowed multiple political theories to be compared, contrasted, debated, and argued against one another for the past century. These theories were created based on certain understandings of human principles or social nature and project these concepts onto the international system. They examine the international political structure and thrive to predict or explain how states will react under certain situations, pressures, and threats. Two of the most popular theories are known as constructivism and realism. When compared, these theories are different in many ways and argue on a range of topics. The topics include the role of the individual and the use of empirical data or science to explain rationally. They also have different ideological approaches to political structure, political groups, and the idea that international relations are in an environment of anarchy.
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
Therefore a free market is not desirable as maximizing their utility is priority. So government is expected to correct the market failure by choosing to char...
The first point that Rodrik makes is that markets are limited by the scope of governance or regulation. He argues that markets and governments are most effective when they are operating in accordance with one another. This theory seems to stem from a theory earlier developed by the famous economist Adam Smith, which was that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.” Rodrik expands on this theory by saying that not only is labor limited by the market, but that markets are limited by government.
The international system is an anarchical system which means that, unlike the states, there is no over ruling, governing body that enforces laws and regulations that all states must abide by. The International System in today’s society has become highly influential from a number of significant factors. Some of these factors that will be discussed are Power held by the state, major Wars that have been fought out in recent history and international organisations such as the U.N, NATO and the W.T.O. Each of these factors, have a great influence over the international system and as a result, the states abilities to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development”.
An outstanding mechanism frequently used to interpret ‘Globalization’ is the ‘World Economy’. Back to the colonial age, the coinstantaneous behaviors of worldwide capitals and energy resources flowed from colonies to western countries has been regarded as the rudiment of the economic geography (Jürgen and Niles, 2005). Nowadays, the global economy was dominated by transnational corporations and banking institutions mostly located in developed countries. However, it is apparently that countries with higher level of comprehensive national strength are eager for a bigger market to dump surplus domestic produce and allocate energy resources in a global scale, thus leads to a world economic integration. This module was supported by several historical globalists (Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson and Deepak Nayyer) ‘their position is that globalization is nothing new but more fashionable and exaggerate, a tremendous amount of internationalization of money and trade in earlier periods is hardly less than today.’ (Frans J Schuurman 2001:64).
The study of international relations takes a wide range of theoretical approaches. Some emerge from within the discipline itself others have been imported, in whole or in part, from disciplines such as economics or sociology. Indeed, few social scientific theories have not been applied to the study of relations amongst nations. Many theories of international relations are internally and externally contested, and few scholars believe only in one or another. In spite of this diversity, several major schools of thought are discernable, differentiated principally by the variables they emphasize on military power, material interests, or ideological beliefs. International Relations thinking have evolved in stages that are marked by specific debates between groups of scholars. The first major debate is between utopian liberalism and realism, the second debate is on method, between traditional approaches and behavioralism. The third debate is between neorealism/neoliberalism and neo-Marxism, and an emerging fourth debate is between established traditions and post-positivist alternatives (Jackson, 2007).
The structure of global economy is an evidently dependent structure, depending on several aspects of the government to power its economy and keep it running reliably. The cycle goes on between the government, firms, product markets, resource markets and finally households. Looking at the government, they provide public goods and services to the firms and households and welcome taxes from both aspects. Differently, they make payments to the resource markets, receiving resources in return, and provide prices for the product markets receiving good and services in return. Moving to the firms, they offer wages, interests, rents and profits to resource markets benefiting of their resources production in return and goods and services to product...