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International Political Economy An Intellectual History

HORRID? After more than four decades of university teaching, I must concede that I have known students who seemed to agree with Cecily, though they did not often express their feelings in quite so forceful a manner. But I have also known many others who learned to appreciate the value-perhaps even the melodrama-that came from reading their political economy. Not everything in political economy may be as sensational as the fall of a currency, whether the rupee or any other. But much of political economy is indeed dramatic and just about all of it is important.

This book is about the academic field of study known as International Political Economy-for short, IPE. More precisely, it is about the construction of IPE as a recognized field of scholarly inquiry. Following standard practice, the term IPE (for the capitalized words International Political Economy) will be used to refer to the fielditself, understood as an area of intellectual investigation. The field of IPE teaches us how to think about the connections between economics and politics beyond the confines of a single state. Without capital letters, international political economy refers to the material world-the myriad connections between economics and politics in real life.

As Oscar Wilde's witty dialogue suggests, sharp observers have long understood that such connections do exist. As a practical matter, political economy has always been part of international relations (IR). But as a distinct academic field, surprisingly enough, IPE was born just a few decades ago. Prior to the 1970s, in the English-speaking world, economics and political science were treated as entirely different disciplines, each with its own view of international affairs. Relatively few efforts were made to bridge the gap between the two. Exceptions could be found, of course, often quite creative ones, but mostly among Marxists or others outside the "respectable" mainstream of Western scholarship. A broad-based movement to integrate market studies and political analysis is really of recent origin. The field today has been described as a "true interdiscipline" (Lake 2006). IPE's achievement was to build new bridges between older, established disciplines, providing fresh perspectives for the study of the world economy.

An academic field may be said to exist when a coherent body of knowledge is developed to define a subject of inquiry. Recognized standards come to be employed to train and certify specialists; full-time employment opportunities become available in university teaching and research; learned societies are established to promote study and dialogue; and publishing venues become available to help disseminate new ideas and analysis. In short, an institutionalized network of scholars comes into being-a distinct research community with its own boundaries, rewards, and careers. In that sense, the field of IPE has existed for less than half a century. This book aims to offer an intellectual history of the field-how it came into being, and why it took the shape that it did.

WHO CARES?

But who cares? Why would anyone be interested in an intellectual history? Could anything be more dull? Or as Cecily might put it, could anything be more horrid?

In fact, there are three main reasons for an intellectual history of IPE. The first one is the practical importance of the subject matter. We are all affected, daily and deeply, by the nexus of economics and politics in international affairs. The gasoline that powers the world's cars comes mainly from nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Can anyone doubt that politics plays a critical role in determining the cost and availability of energy? The shirts and socks that can be bought at Wal-Mart come mainly from China. The largest part of U.S. grain production is sold in Europe and Asia. More than half of all Federal Reserve banknotes circulate outside the United States. The most popular car in the United States is produced by Japan's Toyota. Is there any question that all these market relations have political ramifications? IPE can be found every day in the pages of our local newspaper.

The second reason is the inherent allure of ideas, on which we all rely, consciously or unconsciously, to interpret the world around us. An academic field rests on ideas. Essentially, it is a mental construct that teaches us how to think about our experience-how things work, and how they may be evaluated. An intellectual history adds to our understanding by teaching us where a field's ideas come from-how they originated, and how they developed over time.

An intellectual history also reminds us that the construction of a field like IPE is never complete. History does not mean closed. A field of study in social science reflects the world in which we live, and since the material world is always changing, so too is the way we examine and evaluate it. Ideas and events are forever interacting and evolving. Our understanding, therefore, can always be improved. The construction of IPE has been an investment in intellectual progress. The field is also very much a work in progress.

At issue are profound questions of what scholars call ontology and epistemology. Ontology, from the Greek for "things that exist," is about investigating reality: the nature, essential properties, and relations of being. In other contexts, ontology is used as a synonym for metaphysics or cosmology. In social science, it is used as a synonym for studying the world in which we actually live. What are the basic units of interest, and what are their key relationships? Epistemology, from the Greek for "knowledge," has to do with the methods and grounds of knowing. What methodologies do we use to study the world? What kinds of analysis will enhance our understanding? The construction of a field of study requires development of a degree of consensus on both ontology and epistemology-a shared ("intersubjective") understanding of the basics. Whatever differences specialists may have on particular matters of substance, they must craft a common language in which to communicate. The process is never easy.

Finally, there is the human quality of the IPE story, which involves real people in real time. Ideas do not combat each other in some abstract, ethereal void. Ideas are the product of human imagination, pitting one scholar against another in verbal jousting or printed debate. Intellectual history is also a personal history. As we shall see, the key individuals involved in the construction of IPE have been anything but dull.

DIVERSITY

The field of IPE is united in its effort to bridge the gap between the separate specialties of international economics and IR; that is its common denominator. But IPE is hardly a monolith. The bridges are many and varied, making for a colorful interplay of ideas. Indeed, as a practical matter, there is no consensus on what precisely IPE is all about. Once born, the field proceeded to develop along divergent paths followed by different clusters of scholars. One source characterizes IPE today as "a notoriously diverse field of study" (Payne 2005, 69). Another describes it simply as "schizoid" (Underhill 2000, 806). Too often, students are exposed to just a single version of the field. One purpose of this book is to remind readers that there are in fact multiple versions, each with its own distinct insights to offer. Another purpose is to help readers understand why, among different groups of scholars, some ideas have come to enjoy greater weight and influence than others.

Globally, the dominant version of IPE (we might even say the hegemonic version) is one that has developed in the United States, where most scholarship tends to hew close to the norms of conventional social science. In the "American school," priority is given to scientific method-what might be called a pure or hard science model. Analysis is based on the twin principles of positivism and empiricism, which hold that knowledge is best accumulated through an appeal to objective observation and systematic testing. In the words of Stephen Krasner (1996, 108-9), one of the American school's leading lights, "International political economy is deeply embedded in the standard methodology of the social sciences which, stripped to its bare bones, simply means stating a proposition and testing it against external evidence."

In U.S.-style scholarship, most of the emphasis is placed on midlevel theory building. In contrast to macrotheory (or metatheory), midlevel theory eschews grand visions of history or society. Rather, work tends to concentrate on key relationships isolated within a broader structure whose characteristics are assumed, normally, to be given and unchanging. (Economists would call this partial-equilibrium analysis, in contrast to general-equilibrium analysis.) The American school's ambition has been self-consciously limited largely to what can be learned from rational, empirical inquiry.

Even its critics concede that the mainstream U.S. version of IPE may be regarded as the prevailing orthodoxy. Perched at the peak of the academic hierarchy, the U.S. style largely sets the standard by which IPE scholarship worldwide is practiced and judged. The American school's history, it is fair to say, is the story of the core of the field as we know it. Because of its acknowledged primacy, the U.S. version is the one that will receive the most attention in this book.

The U.S. version, however, hardly represents the only way that the field could have been constructed. The uniqueness-some would say the idiosyncrasy- of the U.S. style must also be stressed. In practice, the American school's self-imposed limitations have been challenged in many parts of the world and in many different languages. In France, more emphasis is placed on regulatory issues; in Germany, on institutions; and elsewhere, on various elements of Marxist theory. The range of alternative approaches, in fact, is remarkably broad-regrettably, too broad to encompass in a single brief history.

For want of space, this book will concentrate on work in the English language-in particular, on an alternative approach that has emerged in Britain and outposts elsewhere in the former empire, such as Canada or Australia. In these locales, scholars have been more receptive than in the United States to links with other academic disciplines, beyond mainstream economics and political science; they also evince a deeper interest in ethical or normative issues. In the British style, IPE is less wedded to scientific method and more ambitious in its agenda. The contrasts with the mainstream U.S. approach are not small; this is not an instance of what Sigmund Freud called the "narcissism of small differences." Indeed, the contrasts are so great that it is not illegitimate to speak of a "British school" of IPE, in contrast to the U.S. version.

The distinction is not strictly geographic, of course. There are Britons or others around the world who have happily adopted the U.S. style, just as there are those in the United States whose intellectual preferences lie more with the British tradition. The distinction, rather, is between two separate branches of a common research community-two factions whose main adherents happen to be located, respectively, on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The two groups may all be part of the same "invisible college," to adopt the term of Susan Strange (1988b, ix), patron saint of the British school. But between them lie deep ontological and epistemological differences.

To underscore the diversity of the field, contrasts between the American and British schools will be explicitly drawn in the chapters that follow. My main point is a simple one. Each style has its strengths-but also its weaknesses. Neither may lay claim to comprehensive insight or exclusive truth. To complete the construction of IPE, it is not enough to build bridges between economics and politics. Bridges must be built between the field's disparate schools, too.

INTELLECTUAL ENTREPRENEURS

Students today take for granted the elaborate edifice of concepts and theories that has been erected to help sort out the mysteries of international political economy. It's there in the textbooks; therefore, it must always have been there. But it wasn't. Someone had to do the heavy lifting. IPE did not spring forth full-blown, like Athena from Zeus's forehead. It was quite the opposite, in fact. The construction of the field demanded time and a not inconsiderable amount of creative energy. No great tower of ideas stood hidden in the mists, just waiting to be discovered. IPE's architecture had to be put together laboriously, piece by piece, step by step. Indeed, the edifice is still being constructed.

How did it happen? As in all academic constructions, the achievement was ultimately a collective one-the product of many minds, each making its own contribution. Yet as every student of collective action knows, leadership is also vital to getting a complex project on track. Critical to the construction of IPE were some extraordinary individuals: a generation of pioneering researchers inspired to raise their sights and look beyond the horizon-beyond the traditional disciplines in which they had been trained-to see the politics and economics of international relations in a new, more illuminating light. Call them intellectual entrepreneurs, eager to undertake a new scholarly enterprise.

To stress the catalytic role of intellectual entrepreneurs is not to subscribe to a Great Man (or Woman) theory of history. I do not mean to caricature how knowledge is constructed. Ralph Waldo Emerson surely exaggerated when he declared, "There is properly no history, only biography." Yet individuals do matter. Every academic endeavor owes much to the determined efforts of a few especially creative master builders. "If I have seen further," the great Isaac Newton once wrote, "it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." We in IPE may say much the same. If today we can see beyond the horizon, it is because we too are able to stand on the shoulders of giants.

The intellectual entrepreneurs of IPE were economists, political scientists, and historians. Some were lifelong academics; others came to university research only after careers in other fields. Some collaborated actively; others cogitated in relative isolation. Some offered broad visions; others strove more to fill in the details. They didn't always concur. Indeed, disagreements among them were rife. Nor were they always right. But through their arguments and disputes-through the give-and-take of their enthusiastic debates-a new academic field gradually, if fitfully, emerged.

Time does take its toll, however, as inevitably it must. The ranks of the pioneer generation are thinning. Regrettably, a couple of old friends have already passed on; others have opted for blissful retirement. Among those remaining I modestly include myself. Originally trained in economics, I began my own foray into IPE in 1970 when, at the invitation of the New York publishing house Basic Books, I agreed to commission and edit a series of original treatises on international political economy-the first such project ever conceived. Ultimately, five books were published in the Political Economy of International Relations Series, including Robert Gilpin's classic U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (1975) as well as two volumes of my own, The Question of Imperialism (1973) and Organizing the World's Money (1977). The rest, as they say, is history.

More than a third of a century later I remain actively engaged in the field, which I have long regarded as my natural home. One source describes me as "one of the rare cases of an economist who came in from the cold" (Underhill 2000, 811). Almost all of my work has been in the general area of international money and finance, where by now, for good or ill, I have attained something of the aura of senior scholar status. "Godfather of the monetary mafia" is the way one younger colleague recently characterized me in a private correspondence. I like to think he meant it as a compliment.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from International Political Economy by Benjamin J. Cohen
Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission.
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