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This paper proposes a new five-dimensional agenda for UK international development policy, offering an alternative to the current approach. The agenda is based on a critical evaluation of UK development policy since 1997 and incorporates insights from the 'post-aid' discourse. Key recommendations include: Recognition of complexity: The UK must acknowledge the complex and contested nature of global development and the inherent limits of development policies and aid interventions. Re-evaluation of private-sector aid instruments: A temporary pause in the use of private-sector mechanisms as a channel for overseas development assistance is advised, given concerns about their effectiveness in driving sustainable outcomes. Consolidation of aid priorities: The UK should streamline its efforts, focusing on areas that demonstrate clear contributions to long-term sustainability and positive development outcomes. Adoption of partnership models: A shift towards peer-to-peer learning and equal partnerships with global South countries is recommended, to foster equitable and respectful relationships. Mitigation of negative impacts and improvement of policy coherence: The UK must address the unintended negative consequences of its development interventions and ensure coherence in policy-making across all government departments to enhance development outcomes. This agenda is informed by extensive research, including thematic analysis of policy documents, semi-structured interviews with civil servants and development experts, and a detailed evaluation of 186 UK-funded projects over a 23-year period. The proposed framework seeks to build more respectful and equal partnerships with governments and communities in the global South, enhancing support for vulnerable populations and reducing poverty. This approach is also expected to restore the diminished soft power benefits of UK aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks how Japan's Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) has promoted a transfiguration of employer into predator who utilizes fraudulent economic strategies to exploit trainees under the abusive conditions. Situating Japan's case within the global dynamics of temporary labor migration as well as drawing on the critical discussions about the 'informal economy', I argue that the formation and expansion of the unequal capital–labor power relations, facilitated by the processes of informalization under the TITP in Japan and the sending countries, has constructed trainees as precarious workers and augmented the dehumanized treatment of these workers by their employers. Specifically utilizing Slavnic's notion of the two patterns of informalization—'informalization from above' and 'informalization from below'—from a de-nationalized perspective, this article illustrates how the involvement of so-called labor migration intermediaries at both departure and destination sites has affected trainees' hierarchical and discriminatory relationships with their employers in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how the European Union (EU) influences the dynamics between supporters and opponents of market liberalization in partner countries. We focus on Ukraine's attempts to safeguard timber trade and agricultural land sales from international markets through moratoria before 2022. We find that the EU intervenes in domestic debates both directly and through domestic pro‐market coalitions to frame these moratoria as expressions of 'vested interests' and instances of state weakness. The EU effectively linked the free trade argument with protecting the environment (as the moratorium tolerated illegal logging) and human rights (as the land moratorium denied landowners their property rights). The EU thus fostered discourses and coalitions prioritizing liberalization over protectionist interests and environmental concerns. This article implies that the EU should encourage debates around market liberalization rather than de‐legitimize opponents, as reconstruction in Ukraine following Russian aggression will require both EU assistance and broader internal coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the analytical contribution of the Weberian ideal type to the field of political economy. Major strands of political economy have continued to integrate ideal type thinking to understand better the dynamics of national, regional and global economic systems. While there is an unbroken popularity of this methodological tool in the social sciences, we argue that it shows particular strengths and weaknesses in the interface between comparative and international political economy. To make this point, we first analyse the aims of the Weberian ideal type and investigate how it has been applied in the Varieties of Capitalism approach (VoC), dominant in much of comparative political economy (CPE). We then explore standard criticisms especially in the extension and reformulation of this approach to include the reasoning of international political economy (IPE). Main patterns of ideal type construction are identified to capture the CPE/IPE interaction and to point to some of the standard pitfalls when using the Weberian device. To maintain its strong position in the toolbox of political economy researchers need to take its heuristic purpose more seriously and be aware of its limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we face uncertainty in times of crisis? Debates in International Relations often struggle to disentangle the processes involved in turning the uncertainty of a crisis into decisions and actions. Drawing on the analysis of Frank H. Knight, we argue that decisions and actions taken by international actors in times of crisis are underpinned by the way that information is accessed, interpreted, and evaluated in order to claim reliable knowledge for shaping future states of the world. We illustrate our argument with the global politics of the ecological crisis and three contrasting methods used by international actors to convert the time of the crisis into decisions and actions: United Nations agencies, financial accounting standard-setters and central banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part One of this article provides a novel condensed Marxist account of China's rapid economic growth which underpins its rising geopolitical and military power. In the vast literature on China's rise, pro-market reforms and/or state policy-making and interventionism are emphasised as causes, depending on whether a neoliberal or neomercantilist perspective is adopted. Although these accounts contain important elements of truth, Marxist economic theory and the theory of uneven and combined development emphasise the central role played by China's comparatively high rates of exploitation and profitability in fuelling rapid economic growth. This Marxist perspective informs a critical analysis of China's hybrid neoliberal policy regime, regionally decentralised system of government, huge trade surpluses and foreign currency reserves, inflows of foreign direct investment, state investment in infrastructure, rising socio-economic inequality, poor social provision especially of public health care, popular support for and potential sources of opposition to the CCP regime, and military modernisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have mushroomed over the last decades. However, the various forms of bi- and plurilateral arrangements have always been met with the concern that their proliferation might come at the expense of overall trade freedom because of undermining multilateral governance. This paper starts from the fact that international treaties are notoriously difficult to enforce, as is compliance with (trade) agreements. By focusing on the political economy of how cooperation in trade liberalization is ultimately sustained via the threat of retaliation as institutionalized within the World Trade Organization (WTO), the paper illuminates a novel and completely different channel between PTA membership and multilateral trade liberalization. Exploring their interaction with respect to trade freedom, we explain that PTA membership actually improves on the working of multilateral arrangements that are supposed to ensure cooperation in trade liberalization, thus effectively catering to more open trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractRecent scholarship has revealed the rapid post-1980s growth, dramatic scope, and socio-economic consequences of multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) corporate tax avoidance and tax haven use. But why did social scientists only start systematically studying these dynamics in the 2010s? This is especially puzzling for International Political Economy (IPE) given that early IPE, in the 1970s, centered analyses of MNEs and their tax affairs under a rubric that Charles Kindleberger called ‘corporate escape’. Drawing on a collective oral history from pioneer interviews, historical documents, and bibliometric analysis, we identify two factors that explain the 1970s origins, the late-century fall, and the recent rise, of corporate escape studies: engagement with transdisciplinary technical knowledge of MNEs, and interaction with the politicization of MNEs. We explain how researchers abandoned the corporate escape agenda in the 1980s–1990s, losing technical insights from cognate disciplines and institutions, and refocusing around economistic and macro-structural analyses. These factors also elucidate why corporate escape studies only fully reinvigorated in the 2010s with political tailwinds and renewed investments in transdisciplinarity. These insights contribute to debates on IPE history and research, reintroduce MNEs as key meso-level institutions, and underscore the importance of historical awareness for studying corporate (mis)conduct and global inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intricate relationships among the evolution of the international political economy, the dynamics of business ecosystems, and the transformations in entrepreneurship within the European energy sector, with a specific emphasis on Greece, particularly the less developed region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. The aim is to understand how geopolitical, economic, and technological dynamics interact across macro-, meso-, and microlevels, especially within the context of the ongoing global energy transition. A multi-method approach is employed, including interviews with 16 experts, a survey of 89 energy firms, and eight in-depth interviews with microfirm owners. A key finding is that an integrated and evolutionary macro–meso–micro framework is essential for understanding and addressing the complex dynamics across various sectors, especially in the energy sector. The study highlights the need for targeted support for smaller firms through a restructured energy policy to foster local entrepreneurship and innovation. It further emphasizes that understanding the evolution of the global energy system and its components is crucial for addressing sustainability in environmental and socioeconomic terms, as the emerging model of energy production and consumption is directly tied to the reshaping of socioeconomic development models in the new globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political economy literature documents how financial investors are more partial to right executives than left ones. Right cabinets face lower interest rates, less volatile stock prices and exchange rates, and higher credit ratings than left cabinets, even after accounting for fiscal differences. But does this advantage persist if right governments accommodate far right parties or ideas? I hypothesize that because far right populism can introduce political instability, markets' evaluation of right executives might deteriorate if they enter coalition with far right parties or adopt their positions. Employing a panel analysis of bond spread data, and a comparative case study of the Netherlands and Sweden, I find that right executives enjoy significantly lower spreads than their left-wing counter-parts, but this advantage disappears if they rule in coalition with the far right or produce overly right-wing manifestos. These findings highlight that right parties may encounter tangible borrowing costs and market rebuke if they accommodate far right populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors affect trade preferences? This article focuses on current‐account balances, which despite being de‐emphasized by mainstream economic theory, play an outsized role in political rhetoric regarding the costs and benefits of free trade. This article shows that individual preferences over trade openness reflect the mercantilist belief that when a country is running a current‐account deficit, trade reduces that country's aggregate employment prospects and diminishes its status on the world stage. This article shows that current‐account balances are an important driver of individual trade preferences. The theory's predictions are borne out by hierarchical analysis of cross‐national observational survey data, and further supported by the results of an original survey priming experiment in the United States. These results contribute to a growing literature emphasizing the effect of macroeconomic factors on preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Central to this paper, Western international political economy cannot well explain China’s peaceful development and its political and economic ties with the outside world, and it is even more difficult to reflect the characteristics of the times that the great changes unseen in a century and socialism with Chinese characteristics have entered into a new era, which are synchronously intertwined and mutually agitated. Constructing China’s international political economy not only emphasizes the Chinese perspective, Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative but also examines the development trend and major problems facing the world from the height of world history and applies the position, viewpoints and methods of Marxist historical materialism to observe the times, interpret the times and lead the times. Design/methodology/approach – Looking back at the development of China’s international political economy, from introducing Western international political economy to increasingly emphasizing the Chinese perspective, Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative, we analyze the distinctive features of China’s international political economy from Western international political economy. Findings – The thought of community with a shared future for mankind is the latest development and concentrated embodiment of Marxist thought on world history in the 21st century, which gives China’s international political economy a distinctive epochal, scientific and practical character, stipulates the research stance and fundamental purpose, establishes the research theme and main line and expands the research space for the construction of Chinese international political economy. Originality/value – The construction of China’s international political economy is not only to create a “Chinese school” of international relations but more importantly to construct a discourse and academic system of China’s international political economy that can understand and grasp the changes in the world, the times and history, providing academic support for in-depth thinking and answering the question of “What is wrong with the world? What should we do?” and contributing Chinese wisdom.

We analyze the effect of state visits by the Catholic pope on human rights in the host country to understand how a small theocracy like the Vatican can exert disproportionate political influence in international politics. Our theory of the strategic interaction between the Catholic Church and host governments describes how the pope's use of conditional approval and criticism incentivizes governments to refrain from human rights violations. Drawing on a new dataset of papal state visits outside Italy and a novel identification strategy, we test for the first time whether governments react in anticipation of a papal visit by improving their human rights protection. Our empirical analysis offers robust evidence for this causal effect, which is supported by qualitative evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part One of this article provides a novel condensed Marxist account of China’s rapid economic growth which underpins its rising geopolitical and military power. In the vast literature on China’s rise, pro-market reforms and/or state policy-making and interventionism are emphasised as causes, depending on whether a neoliberal or neomercantilist perspective is adopted. Although these accounts contain important elements of truth, Marxist economic theory and the theory of uneven and combined development emphasise the central role played by China’s comparatively high rates of exploitation and profitability in fuelling rapid economic growth. This Marxist perspective informs a critical analysis of China’s hybrid neoliberal policy regime, regionally decentralised system of government, huge trade surpluses and foreign currency reserves, inflows of foreign direct investment, state investment in infrastructure, rising socio-economic inequality, poor social provision especially of public health care, popular support for and potential sources of opposition to the CCP regime, and military modernisation.

The purpose of this paper is to link the effects of Argentina's external debt with its ecological effects, from a perspective that combines ecological economics with political economics. This link is established through the concept of ecological debt, understood as the debt that central countries owe to peripheral countries due to their production and consumption patterns. To calculate this debt, Argentine exports from 1961 to 2018 are analyzed through different prices implicit in the ecological footprint. This allows to measure the ecological debt/credit in the case of Argentina and to establish a comparison with the external debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the transition between Fordism and neoliberalism in Italy employing insights from International (IPE) and Comparative Political Economy (CPE). Transitions are key periods to observe how countries tend to converge towards similar political economy developments through processes of social, political and institutional adaptation. We contribute to the literature by detailing how transformations in the 'social and political bases of political economy' influence institutional change. We understand these transformations as movements from below (changes in sociodemographic and productive compositions, and social movements) and above (agency in political parties, trade unions, business associations and elites); we name these components 'the social and productive composition' and 'the social and political representation sphere' respectively. Employing process tracing, we identify three historical periods in post-WWII Italian political economy – state Fordism (1945–78), a transitional period we name 'the long 1980s' (1979–91), and neoliberalism (1992–) – delineated by two historical ruptures: a breakup moment in 1978–9 that signalled the decline of Fordism, and a critical juncture that ushered in neoliberalism in 1992. Analytically, changes within the social and productive composition during state Fordism impacted on the social and political representation sphere, and on several reforms undertaken in different institutional domains. However, since the breakup moment 1978–9 this dynamic changed together with the international political economy context. Similar to other western countries, the main actors within the social and political representation sphere increasingly approached institutional regulation inspired by neoliberal ideas, while the pressures coming from the more active forces within the social and productive composition faltered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a framework for viewing artificial intelligence (AI) as planetary assemblages of coloniality that reproduce dependencies in how it co-constitutes and structures a tiered global data economy. We use assemblage thinking to map the coloniality of power to demonstrate how AI stratifies across knowledge, geographies, and bodies to influence development and economic trajectories, impact workers, reframe domestic industrial policies, and reconfigure the international political economy. Our post-colonial framework unpacks AI through its (1) global, (2) meso, and (3) local layers, and further dissects how these layers are vertically integrated, each with its horizontal dependencies. At (1) the global layer of international political economy maps a new digital bipolarity expressing Sino and American global digital corporations' strategic and dominant positions in shaping a tiered global data economy. Then, at (2) the meso layer, we have a mosaic of domestic industrial policies that fund, frame markets, and develop AI talent across industries, sectors, and organizations to competitively integrate into AI value chains. Finally, incorporating into these are (3) the localized labor processes and tasks, where workers and users enact various AI-mediated tasks and practices driving further value extraction. We traced how AI is an interlaced system of power that reshapes knowledge, geographies, and bodies into dependencies that reinforce stratifications in developing underdevelopment. This commentary maps the current digital realities by laying out an uneven techno-geoeconomic power architecture driving a tiered global data economy and opening new research avenues to examine AI as planetary assemblages of coloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has helped create and lead many international organizations (IOs). Yet in the last six years, the US announced its withdrawal from several IOs including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, and the Universal Postal Union. Do Americans care about US withdrawals from IOs? When do Americans support withdrawing from IOs and support candidates who propose this? We argue that Americans' support for multilateralism tends to divide along party lines, and that IO withdrawal can activate those preferences. We also argue that framing an IO withdrawal as benefiting US national interests can make Americans more likely to favor IO exit. Data from four US survey experiments during the 2016–2020 Trump administration support these arguments. Democrats tend to oppose IO withdrawals while Republicans tend to support them. Further, results show that IO withdrawal (and how it is framed) affects candidate choice and policy support. This suggests that announcing IO withdrawal can be used to rally domestic electoral support. Still, the data also show that a large proportion of the US public values remaining in IOs, even when IOs are imperfect or challenging. In these cases, we note that sunk cost fallacies, status quo bias, and loss aversion may pose friction points for supporting withdrawal. Our findings have important implications for research on public opinion about international cooperation, backlash against IOs, and their life cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This thematic issue brings together a set of articles that empirically map the state of the ongoing geoeconomic turn in the global political economy from an international political economy (IPE) perspective. Changes in the modus operandi of the global political economy urge the development of new conceptual and theoretical tools to grasp the new geoeconomic reality of world affairs. At the same time, the contemporary study of geoeconomics remains theory-centred and focused on its security dimension, thereby underplaying the empirical nuances and variegated aspects of these developments. We therefore make the case for an empirically grounded study of concrete cases and instances of the geoeconomic turn, which can then deliver insights for further theory-building. Likewise, many aspects of the geoeconomic turn cannot be explained by security logics only, but have political economy roots that need to be brought to the foreground. Our thematic issue excavates these dynamics across four key challenges for the global economy: the role of states and firms in a geoeconomic world; global technological competition; the green transition; and implications of the geoeconomic turn for the non-Western world. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate that the geoeconomic turn is only starting to concretely (and partially) materialize and that these transformations, in many cases, tend to replicate existing power structures that prioritize capital(ist) interests related to profit-maximisation over societal interests, ecological sustainability, or social equity. We close by delineating prospects for further IPE research into the ongoing geoeconomic turn in the global political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As geo-economic and geopolitical rivalries intensify, the US is weaponizing its power in global semiconductor supply chains to restrict Chinese technological development. To win this chip war against China, the US must compel key foreign firms in Asia and Europe not to supply its adversary with the materials, tools, and know-how needed to make advanced semiconductors. But will these firms agree to follow the US chip embargo and avoid the lucrative Chinese market? This article examines Germany's "China chokepoint" firms, whose identity and behavior remain critically understudied. Drawing on novel data sets and annual company reports, we show that German firms across three case studies are highly "techno-dependent" on the US. Despite this techno-dependence, German firms have so far sought to circumnavigate US export controls. This constitutes a puzzle because Germany's semiconductor firms are no more involved in the Chinese market than are firms in Japan and South Korea-which have frequently signaled voluntary compliance or even withdrawn from China in anticipation of harsher US sanctions. To resolve this puzzle, we map out Germany's semiconductor network and demonstrate that it is tightly articulated with Germany's auto industry-which is in turn heavily exposed to Chinese markets. We propose that this secondary exposure, through firms' embeddedness in Germany's "national production regime," encourages them to resist the US chip embargo. In this way, we contribute empirical and conceptual insights to international political economy scholarship on firms as geo-economic actors, actively engaged in a protracted and contentious policy process with US authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how aid activities by the World Bank and China, which take two competing approaches to building state capacity, affect a recipient government's effort to build state legitimacy vis-à-vis its population. The study operationalized legitimacy drawing on Levi's 'quasi-voluntary compliance,' and empirically analyzed the two approaches' effects at the local level. The study used the Afrobarometer survey conducted in Tanzania in 2014 and geocoded datasets for aid projects. Chinese aid, characterized by its 'Developmental State' approach, was associated with higher projection of state legitimacy at local level. Meanwhile, the World Bank's aid, which encourages building state legitimacy in a 'contractarian' way, did not demonstrate such a correlation, and there was limited evidence that the co-location of projects from both donors may condition the effects of the World Bank aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has suggested that diplomacy can play a significant role as a mechanism to pave the way for multinational enterprises (MNEs) in foreign countries. Drawing on the international political economy perspective, this article analyzes the influence of the diplomatic activities of the Chinese government on the location of Chinese MNEs. It develops several hypotheses regarding the influence of three essential tools in the Chinese government's current diplomatic agenda: high‐level visits by the Chinese President, the establishment of Confucius Institutes, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 972 country–year observations from 2013 to 2021. The results show that high‐level government visits and Confucius Institutes positively impacted the location of China's outward foreign direct investments, with the effect being lower in BRI countries. The impact of Confucius Institutes was higher for state‐owned enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the combined impacts of certain geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts on the global energy transition, focusing on developments related to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreements. The New Globalization Scenario Matrix (NGSM) and a correlative SWOT analysis in transnational terms are utilized to understand and conceptualize potential future global trends in the emerging new globalization. Findings suggest that the examined contemporary global events may enhance the overall performance of the global system, thereby accelerating energy transitions. Consequently, a re-envisioned approach to the International Political Economy (IPE) of energy is proposed, blending repositioned realism and liberalism to foster a realistic and innovative new global liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do credit rating agencies (CRAs) view China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? Our analysis of 132 countries in 2000–17 demonstrates that Chinese foreign investment adversely affects sovereign ratings of recipient countries when these countries participate officially in the BRI but is otherwise insignificant. These results indicate that rather than being a generic China bias, the BRI bias is a geopolitical bias, based on CRA’s expectation that BRI recipients become more dependent economically and politically on China. The main implication of our findings in financial terms is that CRAs limit the supply of international capital to BRI recipients. In broader terms of international political economy, this indicates a feedback loop whereby BRI funding repels Western funding and increases dependence on more BRI financing. Put differently, CRAs exacerbate the structural shift in the world political economy toward a decoupling between the US and Chinese financial spheres of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When talking about the origins of International Political Economy (IPE), the traditional form that emerged in the 1970s is mentioned. Under the assumption that economic issues were ignored by the internationalists of that time. This article seeks to disprove this assumption through the case of Leonard Woolf. Through a revisionist historiographical study of Woolf's writings on imperialism, it is shown that what was experienced was a reactivation of a field of study that had already been present at least since the beginning of the 20th century. Also, the foundations are established for future research on some other intellectuals from the early 20th century, bringing with them an alternative narrative when talking about EPI as a subdiscipline of International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we as scholars and instructors globalize International Political Economy (IPE) teaching beyond the syllabi? This pedagogical intervention proposes a concrete way to globalize IPE teaching in the classroom and through student-led activities based on courses taught during two semesters at the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia). We present the making of a multilingual glossary of IPE drafted by groups of students based in different universities in very different geographical, political, economic and cultural contexts. We argue that such a pedagogical intervention is not only about globalizing and decolonizing the teaching of IPE; it also helps develop important competences by students, especially their engagement and criticality. We review the literature on globalizing and decolonizing IPE before providing background on the idea of 'global competence' as part of the objectives of higher education and its relevance for recent calls to globalize IPE. We then present a toolbox for the pedagogical intervention that we used in such a way to be reused by anyone wanting to build upon it. Lastly, we further reflect on the contribution and challenges of such interventions regarding current attempts to globalize and decolonize IPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst growing financial internationalization, public banks are a reemerging mode of financial governance that can serve as a policy tool for counter-cyclical crisis financing, proactive investment (e.g. green finance), or protectionist lending. Yet no systematic studies examine what leads governments to form public banks in the first place, in part due to a lack of data. This paper introduces an original dataset, conceptual framework, and descriptive empirical insights to serve as the basis for future research. I discuss contending definitions of public banks to advance the more targeted conceptualization of 'government-initiated public banks' (G-Pubs), or banks that are formed by governments and remain under government control through ownership and/or management. The dataset includes 1,355 banks and spans 195 countries for the period 1401–2020. Using these data, I test prevailing assumptions suggesting G-Pubs are more likely to form in less developed or more autocratic countries. I show that for the period 1970–2020, G-Pub formation is instead associated with developed democracies. Descriptive analysis prior to the 1970s further supports a more complex view. These findings underscore the need for a renewed research agenda on public banking that considers both domestic and international political economic dynamics, including international diffusion, financial integration, and crisis mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political and economic tensions, which often jeopardise trade, are rising among the world's major powers, and countries like China are more frequently using food‐related trade actions to deal with deteriorating political relations. Using an event study approach, this paper investigates how importers respond to lasting political tensions by examining China's seafood importers' responses to the 6‐year Norway–China political tensions after Norway awarded Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political dissident, a Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Our results reveal firm‐level responses at both the intensive and extensive margins. At the intensive margin, firms that imported Norwegian fresh salmon before the sanction saw a 20% persistent decline in their fresh salmon import value and an 80% decrease in the import share of Norwegian fresh salmon products over our study period. At the extensive margin, we find a trade diversion effect that firms imported fresh salmon from Norway to other countries and regions, but also a consistent 'political hedging' effect 3 years after sanction with a 20% decline in the maximum import share from any particular country or region, even if not Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the evolving theoretical divide within the field of International Political Economy (IPE), focusing on the debate between the advocates of new globalization and critics from the anti-globalization perspective. By conducting an integrative review of the contemporary literature, we explore the foundational theories, core components, and primary theorists of both perspectives, aiming to understand their predictions for future global dynamics. The investigation reveals a polarization in theoretical orientation, reflecting divergent views on the implications of globalization. Through a critical analysis, the paper identifies the liberal international order and the respective contemporary neo-Marxist viewpoints as central to the debate, evaluating their critiques and contributions to understanding the new globalization's trajectory. We suggest a synthesis of these perspectives, positing that the future of globalization—or "new globalization"—will be influenced by structural changes in global power dynamics, ongoing crises, and technological progress. This is encapsulated in the "evolutionary structural triptych" (EST) approach, which perceives the world economy as an evolutionary result of political, economic, and technological structures, which correspondingly reposition the objectives of stability, growth, and innovation in the new emerging era. In conclusion, we advocate for a balanced approach to globalization, emphasizing the need for policies that promote fairness, sustainability, and cooperation in the changing global environment. This leads to the re-introduction of an appealing concept for globalization's future: a new, realistic, open, and innovative global liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia banned nickel ore exports to assert sovereignty over natural resources, boost nickel product value, and boost the economy. This strategy increased Indonesia’s influence in global trade negotiations, showed autonomy, and ensured long-term advantages. The policy prioritises domestic nickel derivative production to increase nickel product value and industry self-sufficiency. Nickel is used in Indonesia’s diplomatic and economic efforts to increase its influence on world politics and trade. The analysis explores the decision by Indonesia to implement an export ban on unprocessed nickel ore illustrates a strategic synthesis of economic nationalism and political sovereignty. This policy, vigorously promoted by President Jokowi, aligns with the broader vision to bolster Indonesia’s economic competitiveness and achieve self-sufficiency by enhancing the domestic nickel processing industry. Utilizing its substantial nickel reserves, Indonesia not only seeks to strengthen its economic position but also to assert its sovereignty in global affairs, potentially shaping international nickel market dynamics. This policy serves dual purposes: it addresses domestic economic goals and strategically positions Indonesia as an influential player in the global nickel market. Monitoring the outcomes of this policy will be crucial in understanding its impacts on Indonesia’s economy and its relations on the international stage, ensuring that the country maximizes benefits from its natural resources.

Religious extremism and radicalization have dominated the discourse on the causes of terrorism. However, little is written of other drivers of terrorism, such as economic and social deprivations, which could prompt religious groups to resort to terrorism. Scholars have sufficiently analyzed the imports of radical ideological and religious views on the emergence of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida, ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab. By contrast, the Seleka and anti-Balaka terrorists of the Central African Republic introduces a new perspective to the explanation of terrorism. This essay uses the analytical framework of abnormality and State fragility to discuss the rise of terrorism in the Central African Republic. The essay argues that the historical precedent of State failure and weak institutions provides a catalyst that propels the use of terrorism by religious groups, the state and organized groups to demand political and economic dividends as well as a tool for power contestations and regime change. The study recommends multiple peacebuilding and building nation-building processes that will aid the transformation of the state. They include the transformation of the subsistence farming culture to a masses-driven cash crop economy for exportation, which will manage state fragility and promote civil-military counter-terrorism culture at the grassroots.

How do states exercise power in complex, decentralized governance regimes? This article sheds light on this question by analyzing one of the pillars of the post-war economic order: the international tax regime. The taxation of multinational enterprises is governed by a system composed of thousands of Bilateral Tax Treaties signed between pairs of national governments. We argue that despite the bilateral nature of these treaties, their legal content is largely controlled by a small group of economically powerful governments. By drafting and promoting "boilerplate" legal language, and by leveraging network effects, OECD countries were able to build a coherent, encompassing, quasi-multilateral regime to govern the taxation of multinationals in most of the world. We test and find support for our arguments about the role of network effects and the power of boilerplate using inferential network analysis and an automated text analysis of a corpus of 3200 treaty texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution focuses on a reconceptualization of the term globalization, drawing on world system theories and the dialectical concept of countermovement. The focus is the Social-Economic Formation (SEF) concept elaborated by the Marxist tradition to understand and analyse the contemporary ascendance of China and its power projection. Based on dialectic methodology, we argue that globalization is a contradictory process of interconnectivity between SEFs in different historical eras with substantive changes in the space–time relationship. Thus, the embryonic Embedded Chinese Globalization is emerging as a historical negation of Neoliberal globalization (NG) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power shifts leading to heightened conflict and negotiation deadlocks, as well as growing institutional fragmentation and informality, constitute major challenges for global economic governance. The three books reviewed in this article provide innovative and unique explanations for these developments, through the lens of Southern countries (Shaffer and Narlikar) as well as the industrialized West (Roger). While the studies by Narlikar and Shaffer highlight changes in the negotiation strategies and the legal capacities of poor countries and emerging powers, Roger develops a theory explaining why economically advanced Western democracies increasingly rely on informal institutions. The article examines how and in what ways the three books complement conventional wisdom in economics, International Political Economy (IPE) and International Relations (IR) literature on global economic governance. It discusses the books' contributions to the theorizing of global (economic) governance, the advancements towards a Global IR (and IPE), the changing power relations in global economic institutions, the domestic and the transnational dimensions of global economic governance, and the role of informality in the design of global economic fora. The conclusion summarizes the main insights offered about the current crises of multilateralism and delineates avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecologically unequal exchange has enjoyed several decades of rich theoretical and empirical scholarship. Quantitative assessments of the theory in sociology typically sample lower income nations to see whether more trading to high income nations contributes to environmental problems in the former. In this paper, we explore ecologically unequal exchange theory, as well as related traditions, to draw attention to how these theories develop relational understandings of global advantage and disadvantage in socioecological terms. Thus, we argue that relational methods, like social network analysis, among other approaches, better align with the underlying theoretical framework in the research area. More specifically, ecologically unequal exchange's emphasis on "extractive peripheries" calls for those geographic zones to be the primary site of analysis as opposed to bifurcating nations based on income. We specifically propose social network tools and methods, such as position/role analyses, because they can directly analyze trade data to construct categories of nations, such as extractive export sites. Generally, we argue that these methods better approximate the underlying theory, while acknowledging the utility of the longstanding approach, calling for methodological diversification in general and embracing relational methods in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Building on the existing literature on business power that has evolved against the background of a liberal economic world order, this article develops a novel analytical framework to capture business strategies in an altered, geoeconomic context. It addresses the research question whether and how business power has been affected by the more recent turn of European policy‐makers to adopt geoeconomic measures in response to external geopoliticising pressures. The relevance of these categories for analysis is illustrated by discussing recent cases of business lobbying on the EU's geoeconomic agenda, as well as business responses to the sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. These illustrative examples show that whilst most business actors have adapted their strategies, there are also cases where business actors adhere to and defend the status quo. The article prepares the ground for further research on the understudied consequences of the geoeconomic turn for business power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the 'blind spots in IPE' recently addressed in related Special Issues of Review of International Political Economy and New Political Economy. It identifies a blind spot of law in IPE, tracing the problem to a blind spot in the discipline of international relations (IR) generated by tendencies in dominant theories to consider international law to be super-structural, epiphenomenal, and not worthy of political analysis, and to associations of international law with idealism. The analysis notes an inverse blind spot in international law (IL), wherein legal scholars tend to regard IL as autonomous of politics and the political economy of 'who gets what, when, how'. These blind spots contribute to the neglect of how legal forms function to mystify the political economy of IL, thereby advancing transnational capitalism and inequality. The empirical focus is on transnational contract law, dispute settlement, and value and production chain contracting. These laws function as Capital's law and central pillars of the transnational politico-legal order by reaching deep inside states to restructure domestic spheres according to new constitutionalism and the demands of transnational capital. Drawing on critical political economy, the paper develops a historical materialist analysis to denaturalize and demystify Capital's law. This is a necessary move for scholars interested in the progressive and emancipatory potential of IL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, Marxist-inspired approaches from the field of International Historical Sociology (IHS) have theorised the relationship between 16th and 17th Century European colonial expansion and the development of relations of production and economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic. In this article, we argue that such attempts - from Dependency Theory (DT), World-Systems Theory (WST), and Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) - are premised on a structuralist perspective which overextend the notion of capitalism and under examine the sphere of production, rendering divergent and distinct strategies of European colonialism a homogenous and under-historicised process. Embracing theoretical innovations from Geopolitical Marxism (GPM), we dispute this unitary logic of expansion, instead applying a radical historicist methodology to demonstrate that British and Spanish colonial strategies in the Americas (intra-imperial free trade vs. mercantilism) were shaped by nationally specific class relations (capitalism vs. feudalism/absolutism), generating unique patterns of settlement on the ground (mineral extraction vs. cash-crop production). Promoting historicism thus allows Marxist International Relations to better recognise "the 'making of' the international order" during the period of European colonial expansion from the 16th century onwards, and, in doing so, further understand its enduring legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Relaciones Internacionales (1699-3950) is the property of Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, International Relations Studies Group (GERI) Law Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article develops a framework for attributing motivations to Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) investment by noting that there are two major subdivisions, those that argue that the investments are undertaken due to macroeconomic factors and those that argue there is a political element as well. The political literature is divided into three subcategories of domestic political considerations, geopolitical competition and economic diplomacy. The literature of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) does not include any discussion of economic diplomacy as a consideration, an omission this article seeks to rectify. Using a realist understanding of international political economy (IPE), the article explores the influence of elites, the nature of PIF investments in America, India, China and Russia, and collaboration with other SWFs on investment. The article concludes that economic diplomacy should be considered as one of a multitude of variables that determine how and where the PIF invests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings feminist critiques of capitalism into conversation with race-conscious International Political Economy to highlight the place of social reproduction in the colonial global economy. It does so by taking a provincial perspective, using Royal Leamington Spa as a case study to reveal how the provision of care for the elderly and the ill sustained colonial elites across the life course, while religious and educational practices helped transmit cultural values across generations and reproduce imperialism as an institutionalised social order. Whereas the finance houses of London, the factories of Manchester, and the ports of Liverpool and Bristol constitute nodal points for imperial circuits of capital, the spa town condenses the everyday practices through which bourgeois metropolitan empire was lived and made liveable. These findings point to a functional differentiation of economic space within the metropole and offer a critical reinterpretation of Middle England as a Whitened site of middle-class respectability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronting the coming five decades from our present conjuncture demands – to paraphrase Antonio Gramsci's famous mantra – both critical pessimism and a wilful politics of hope. In this article, we engage with the politics of climate breakdown and the responses to wider socio-ecological crises with a necessary critical pessimism. Specifically, we confront the capture of green transition imperatives by finance capital, as well as the troubling orientation of transition towards building new structures of accumulation around the vision of an electrified consumer society. We also see the coming decades being marked by the ever-increasing wealth of global asset-owning classes – who, by definition, enclose the atmospheric commons faster than any other community. Against this dystopian picture of increasingly concentrated wealth, corporate excess, and terrestrial crisis, we focus on the stubborn reproduction of socio-ecological life through various grounded projects across the world. We engage with communities who work against structural constraints to reproduce life from below through urban commoning, food sovereignty, Indigenous organising, and caretaking economies – all of which are scaling out their visions through alternative internationals. All of these projects, we argue, present a planetary and multiscalar political economy in practice, which connects grounded experience with resistance to the dynamics of capitalism at the state, corporate, and transnational levels. With lessons from these communities in mind, we call for a 'planetary political economy of the global majority', which prioritises the reproduction of socio-ecological life according to the visions of grounded anti-systemic projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]