Guest post by Alan Cunningham
The international political economy (IPE) is an incredibly sensitive system. It defines how international trade and commerce are conducted and significantly helps the long-term development of nation-states while also assisting in the growth of free trade.
Encyclopedia Britannica defines International Political Economy as the study of “problems that arise from or are affected by the interaction of international politics, international economics, and different social systems (e.g., capitalism and socialism) and societal groups (e.g., farmers at the local level, different ethnic groups in a country, immigrants in a region such as the European Union, and the poor who exist transnationally in all countries)”.
The academic encyclopedia further writes that IPE “[explores] a set of related questions (“problematique”) that arise from issues such as international trade, international finance, relations between wealthier and poorer countries, the role of multinational corporations, and the problems of hegemony (the dominance, either physical or cultural, of one country over part or all of the world), along with the consequences of economic globalization”.
In the discussion of IPE, there are three main perspectives on the field, these being Mercantilism, Liberalism, and Structuralism.
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