Issues and Agents in International Political Economy


Book Description

This is the second of two anthologies on international political economy drawn from articles published in the journal International Organization. The book is organized into four sections: Trade, Multinational Firms and Globalization, Money and Finance, and Emerging Issues.




The American Political Economy


Book Description

Drawing together leading scholars, the book provides a revealing new map of the US political economy in cross-national perspective.




Global Political Economy


Book Description

The text aims to provide succinct summaries of topical, wide-ranging issues and controversies, presenting a compact guide which should be of use to students and lecturers in IPE and international relations.




Agents, Structures and International Relations


Book Description

The agent-structure problem is a much discussed issue in the field of international relations. In his comprehensive 2006 analysis of this problem, Colin Wight deconstructs the accounts of structure and agency embedded within differing IR theories and, on the basis of this analysis, explores the implications of ontology - the metaphysical study of existence and reality. Wight argues that there are many gaps in IR theory that can only be understood by focusing on the ontological differences that construct the theoretical landscape. By integrating the treatment of the agent-structure problem in IR theory with that in social theory, Wight makes a positive contribution to the problem as an issue of concern to the wider human sciences. At the most fundamental level politics is concerned with competing visions of how the world is and how it should be, thus politics is ontology.




Delegation and Agency in International Organizations


Book Description

Why do states delegate certain tasks and responsibilities to international organizations rather than acting unilaterally or cooperating directly? Furthermore, to what extent do states continue to control IOs once authority has been delegated? Examining a variety of different institutions including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Commission, this book explores the different methods that states employ to ensure their interests are being served, and identifies the problems involved with monitoring and managing IOs. The contributors suggest that it is not inherently more difficult to design effective delegation mechanisms at international level than at domestic level and, drawing on principal-agent theory, help explain the variations that exist in the extent to which states are willing to delegate to IOs. They argue that IOs are neither all evil nor all virtuous, but are better understood as bureaucracies that can be controlled to varying degrees by their political masters.




Problem-Driven Political Economy Analysis


Book Description

This volume presents eight good practice examples of problem-driven political economy analysis conducted at the World Bank, and reflect what the Bank has so far been able to achieve in mainstreaming this approach into its operations and policy dialogue.




The Three Fields of Global Political Economy


Book Description

The Three Fields of Global Political Economy provides a systematic and future-oriented account of global political economy dynamics since the Industrial Revolution and argues that major changes and conflicting processes can be understood through the concept of these three fields. The first field is constituted by the circuit of capital and is characterised by a tendency towards economic liberalism. The second field is brought about by reactions to, and learning from, cycles and crises and various negative experiences. The third field is the field of reason of state. It is evoked by struggles within and among states and has its own inner generative structures. This book analyses the generic dynamics of these three fields of global political economy and explores their most significant causal effects, such as growth, employment, distribution of income and wealth, wars, and ecological effects. Together, the prevailing three fields, as well as the ideas and causal forces which generate them, constitute the "holomovement" of the global political economy. This book will appeal to advanced students and scholars of global studies, international relations, international political economy, economic theory, and governance, as well as those working in social theory and sociology, and to a broader audience interested in socioeconomics.




Globalization Contested


Book Description

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.




The Political Economy of International Shipping in Developing Countries


Book Description

Shipping has played a pivotal role as the vector or artery through which this trade is conducted and in which this pattern of inequality has only recently been challenged by the South.




Handbook of the International Political Economy of Trade


Book Description

This accessible, comprehensive and pertinent Handbook will be of interest to academics, researchers and students working in the fields of international politics, in particular political economy and foreign policy, and the economics of trade.¾ Practitio