Colombia Internacional 62, jul - dic 2005, 50 - 63
         INTERNATIONAL
         POLITICAL ECONOMY: 
         the state of the art
                     1
         Ralf J. Leiteritz
                                               recibido 20/12/05, aprobado 31/01/06
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                                                                                         R alf J. Leiteritz
                   El autor ofrece una revisión del campo de la economía política internacional (EPI)
                   a partir de sus lineamientos metateóricos.  Las comunidades de EPI en Estados
                   Unidos y Europa exhiben más diferencias que aspectos comunes en sus supuestos
                   ontológicos, epistemológicos y metodológicos.       Mientras que la perspectiva
                   estadounidense se basa en una ontología materialista y el individualismo
                   metodológico, y tiene como fundamento epistemológico al neopositivismo, la
                   comunidad europea de EPI es más heterogénea en sus aproximaciones teóricas,
                   epistemológicas y metodológicas.    El artículo termina planteando tres posibles
                   escenarios para el futuro de la sub-disciplina de la EPI.
                   Palabras clave: Economía política internacional, filosofía de la ciencia, Estados
                   Unidos,Europa
                   The author provides an overview about the field of international political economy
                   (IPE) along metatheoretical lines.The IPE communities in the United States and
                   Western Europe exhibit more differences than commonalities in their ontological,
                   epistemological and methodological assumptions. While the U.S. perspective is
                   solidly based on a materialist ontology, methodological individualism, and neo-
                   positivism as its epistemological foundation, the European IPE community is
                   considerably more heterogeneous in its theoretical, epistemological and
                   methodological approaches. The article ends with a view towards the future
                   introducing three possible scenarios for the IPE sub-discipline.
                   Keywords: International political economy, philosophy of science, United States,
                   Western Europe
                              he discipline of                 Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye
                              International Political          “Power and Interdependence” (1977
                      TEconomy (IPE) is one                    [2001]) emblematically signaled the
               of the most recent entries into the cur-        arrival of the new sub-discipline with-
               ricular canon of International                  in International Relations. Scholars
               Relations (IR).While the term ‘politi-          increasingly realized the multiple inter-
               cal economy’ has of course a formida-           actions between politics and econo-
               ble intellectual pedigree, IPE scholars         mics on the international level (as
               came to associate themselves with this          discussed by Keohane and Nye study-
               new label only during the 1970s,when            ing the political implications of the oil
               a group of political scientists defined         shocks during the 1970s) which
               IPE as an autonomous field of research          required an integrated perspective
               apart from economics.The volume by              between the two professions.
               1 Profesor Asistente, Departamento de Ciencia Política, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá,Colombia. I thank Andreas Dür,
                 Axel Hülsemeyer,Markus Lederer,Andreas Nölke,Ken Shadlen,Manuela Spindler,Jens Steffek as well as the anonymous
                 reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.
                                                                                                          51
                I nternational Political Economy: the state of the art
                     This brief overview about the            purpose of this paper is to make them
              “state of the art” in International             explicit and visible. After discussing
              Political Economy will introduce the            what IPE is all about, I will separate
              field along metatheoretical lines. Any          the research tradition in the United
              substantial theory in the social sciences       States from the one in Western
              in general and international relations in       Europe in order to highlight the di-
              particular is built upon a specific phi-        fferent trajectory that the sub-disci-
              losophy of social science or metatheo-          pline has taken in both regions. I
              ry. Metatheory includes ontological             conclude with a brief consideration
              claims - claims about existence of the          of possible scenarios for the future.
              form ‘what is the world made of’.
              Epistemological considerations are              What is IPE?
              claims about what would constitute a                   The U.S. scholar Robert Gilpin
              valid knowledge claim, and the                  provided the - still widely used - stan-
              grounds for such claims. Epistemology           dard definition of IPE along the clea-
              is closely related to methodological            vage between the state and the market:
              implications. Methodology is focused
              on the specific ways - the methods -                The parallel existence and mutual
              that we can use to try to understand                interaction of ‘state’ and ‘market’ in
              our world better (Smith 1996: 18).                  the modern world create ‘political
              Taken together,ontology,epistemology                economy’(…) In the absence of the
              and methodology form a tripartite sys-              state,the price mechanism and mar-
              tem of acquiring knowledge along the                ket forces would determine the
              following lines: “if you believe in X               outcome of economic activities;this
              (ontology) and wish to ground the                   would be the pure world of the
              claim X in Y (epistemology) then you                economist. In the absence of the
              should follow method Y (methodolo-                  market, the state or its equivalent
              gy)”(Wight 2002:41,fn 4).                           would allocate economic resources;
                     Metatheoretical differences                  this would be the pure world of the
              matter for social science research,                 political scientist (Gilpin 1987: 8).
              since different ontological and/or
              epistemological positions lead to di-                  Both spheres - state and market
              fferent theoretical approaches in               - are supposed to operate separately,
              terms of what and how to investigate            with different functional logics.While
              (in) the social world. In other words,          power politics dominates the political
              depending on what you believe the               realm, market processes are driven by
              world (of IPE) mainly consists of,you           economic or efficiency imperatives.
              have a preference for the objects of            However, the increasingly complex
              your investigation. Likewise, virtually         links between developed countries
              all IPE scholars approach their                 described by Keohane and Nye and
              research questions with the help of             more recently the onslaught of globa-
              specific methodological understand-             lization in all its different forms,
              ings. While these metatheoretical               including the rise of new actors such
              decisions remain mostly implicit in             as multinational corporations and
              theoretical and empirical research,the          social movements across borders, have
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                                                                                  R alf J. Leiteritz
              challenged the treatment of states and      institutions to developing countries,
              markets as separate and contesting          and the political effects of economic
              units of analysis, reinforcing the poli-    globalization on states.
              tical and scientific significance of their          The conventional view sepa-
              mutual interconnectedness (Strange          rates the field in three major paradigms:
              1988)2. We now live in the era of a         realism/mercantilism, liberalism/plura-
              truly global economy reaching virtu-        lism, and Marxist structuralism (Gilpin
              ally all parts of the world and making      1987: 25-64).Yet recent theoretical and
              economic integration a fact of life.On      empirical developments have superseded
              the other hand, we are still confined       these hermetical divisions between the
              by a fragmented political system of         three schools of thought. First, realism
              states, which are desperately trying to     and liberalism have converged on many
              keep control of economic globaliza-         important points. While the debate
              tion.The resulting tensions and cons-       between neorealism and neoliberalism
              tant interactions between politics and      characterized the theoretical discourse in
              economics make for the ‘bread and           IPE during the 1980s, it ended with a
              butter’ of analyses in IPE.                 pragmatic fusion of sorts (Baldwin
                    Rather than thinking in terms of      1993). Sharing important ontological
              separate spheres,contemporary IPE can       and epistemological assumptions, realist
              be defined as the analysis of the interac-  scholars increasingly embraced the ratio-
              tion between the political and the eco-     nalist, ‘scientific’ methodology derived
              nomic sphere involving state and            from neoclassical economics, while li-
              non-state actors on the national and the    berals came to appreciate the relevance
              international level. Politics and eco-      of power and structural anarchy for the
              nomics have transcended their tradi-        analysis of international (economic)
              tional disciplinary anchors and their       co-operation. The result has been the
              fusion has given rise to numerous theo-     hegemony of a specific metatheoretical
              retical research agendas and empirical      approach to IPE in the United States
              analyses.The main topics in contempo-       (see below).
              rary IPE are either specific issue-areas           Second, while Marxist analyses
              such as international trade, internatio-    experienced a significant decline after
              nal finance, and (economic) develop-        1990 vis-à-vis the two other traditional
              ment,   or questions of political           schools of thought, it has undergone a
              regulation under the term governance        remarkable theoretical diversification.
              (of the international economy).             While most textbooks focus on the
              Examples for specific research areas are    capitalist world system theory of
              the political and institutional determi-    Immanuel Wallerstein as the main pro-
              nants of foreign trade policy, the effects  tagonist of this paradigm (Wallerstein
              of foreign direct investment on domes-      1979), recent contributions in the
              tic political processes and institutions,   Marxist literature challenge its over-
              the amount of economic ‘development         deterministic, structural analysis of his-
              space’granted by multilateral economic      tory. More nuanced approaches have
              2 To be fair,the more historically informed tradition of classical political economy, e.g.,Adam Smith,Thorstein Veblen and
                Karl Polanyi, has long ago challenged the conventional distinction between ‘states’ and ‘markets’ (Watson 2005).
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