He first asks why international political economy is important. He points out that beginning in the 1970s the rise of globalization made it important.
The volume of commercial transactions between countries had grown enormously, but, more significantly, the range of people and organizations involved in international affairs had broadened, the rise of multinational corporations being only the best-known instance. (p. 100-101)
More true today even than then.
International economic theory, focusing on trade, suffers many of the same criticisms as an int'l theory of political economy as does its domestic version.
Critics especially attacked the apolitical character of international trade theory, with its view that mutually and equally beneficial relations arose from every country's pursuit of the "comparative advantage" nature gave it for the production of particular commodities. (p. 102)
Critics argued that this provides at best a partial explanation of trade patterns.
Trade could be free without being equally advantageous, and where its benefits were unequally divided the reason was often political. (p. 102)
Critics say it is wrong for liberal trade theory to imply that all societies freely determine how and whether to participate in international commerce (look at the experience of colonial territories).
Models of International Political Economy
Models of political economy have to deal with the economic/political dimension. International models add the external forces/internal processes dimension.
Examining international theories of political economy requires answering four questions:
1. How does the international economy influence the "high politics" of international relations and vice versa?
2. How does the international economy influence internal political processes and vice versa?
3. How does the international state system influence internal political processes?
4. How does the international economy influence domestic economies?
Then he begins a discussion of major schools of thought. This chapter is long and I'm not particularly interested in international relations except to the extent it has domestic impacts, so I'll summarize only his discussion of the three more mainstream schools: liberal, realist/mercantilist, and interdependence. I'll leave the dependecy and world systems schools to those who care. Likewise I plan to skip the whole chapter on Marxism until such a time as I see a need for it.
The Liberal School
As with its domestic variant, strictly economistic. Uses a "market explanation" to explain changes in national policies regarding international relations. He quotes John Odell:
... In general, a market explanation for policy changes claims that international market conditions changed so as to make it economically irrational for a government to continue prevailing policy, and it was for this reason that the government yielded and adopted a new policy more in comformity with market signals. (p. 105)
Liberals tend to be impatient with "irrational" political concerns and believe that in the long run economic forces will predominate over the political.
Liberals believe that national development is best accomplished by opening a country up to outside aid, technology, and investment.
The Realist and Mercantilist School
The mercantilist school was outlined in chapter 4. It is closely related to the realist school of international relations in that both subordinate economic forces to political interests. They share primacy of "national interest."
This school sees a world of states -- not markets. Economic policy is a weapon in the struggle for dominance and security between nation-states.
The overriding commitment to national security has implications for domestic policy. Realist/mercantilists support the right of the state to regulate economic activity. This school is skeptical of the benefits of free trade and the existence of interdependence. Quoting Gourevitch:
Interdependence derives from state policy and not the other way around: that is, it exists because states allow it to exist. Should states refuse to do so, the constraining quality of that interdependence would be broken.
Staniland goes on: the supremacy of politics over economics is both explanatory and prescriptive:
That is, it suggests that economistic explanations are likely to be wrong and that policies based exclusively on economic arguments or pieties about "international economic cooperation" are likely to be disastrous. (p. 108)
Staniland appears to find a big lacking in realist international theory:
If political dominance (meaning, presumably the ability of a state to change the behavior of another by the threat or deployment of force) is so effective in the short run, why does the short run ever end? Why is it that shifts in the location of economic power are ever allowed to occur? ... Britain ... did not or could not prevent technological development in Germany before World War I nor the loss of her control of world markets to the United States. Yet she was able earlier to force the practice of free trade on Latin American countries.
The Interdependence School
This school challenges certain assumptions of realism. Challenges the assumption that states represent a sartsfactory lowest common denominator for analysis. There are intra-state conflicts and disagreements about the "national interest" and thus conflicts over goals and objectives. These conflicts play a role in the adoption of policies.
The interdependence shool also claims that the growing complexity of world markets and the amount of international trade has made the definition of national interst problematic. Countries are often linked in ways that fall outside formal diplomatic channels (think multinationals again). The private sector channels may often be more influential on the policies of other nation states than other national governments.
These considerations make military force not always the most relevant instrument of influence.
So, as a model of change neither politicism nor economism prevails. He outlines Keohane's and Nye's (interdependence theorists) four models of change:
1. Economic processes (meaning change is caused by technological development and growing economic interdependence);
2. Overall world power structure (meaning that change is caused by alterations in the distribution of military power, by the erosion of one state's hegemony and the rise of challengers);
3. The power structure within issue areas (meaning the particular disposition of resources and the particular relationships characteristic of a certain sector of exchange, such as precisou minerals or textiles);
4. Power capabilities as affected by international organizations (meaing change attributable to the independent influence of the "world political structure" and to the deference paid by states to the institutions that comprise it -- the United Nations being the most conspicuous example).
The four models are consecutive and cumulative: you start with the economic processes and add additional layers until you have an explanation of the change in question.
Staniland has more on the Dependency School and the World Systems School, but I'm not interested.
Staniland, M. (1985). International political economy. in What is Political Economy?: A Study of Social Theory and Underdevelopment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Posted by Chip on June 05, 2004 at 12:55 PM | TrackBack