History of International Relations and the Economy
The present work aims to analyze whether the international political economy (EPI) should be studied as a discipline that has international relations (RI) by subdiscipline or if on the contrary the IR as a discipline that contains the EPI? The above will be done by means of a brief study of political economy. Second, it will be reviewed as and because the international political economy resurfaces. Third, the EPI will be studied as a competed concept and the proposal of Manríquez will be reviewed, on the 5 trends in which the contributions of the aforementioned topic are structured. Fourth, a study of the theoretical scope of the EPI will be done, as well as its relationship with political realism, neorealism, institutional liberalism and neomarxism. Fifth, the arguments presented by Susan Starng will be reviewed in the withdrawal of the State, to finally conclude on whether the EPI must be studied as a subdiscipline of the RI or vice versa.
From the beginning, the study of politics has been closely related to the economy and starting at the end of World War I with international relations. As far as politics concerns, since the 16th century, Machiavelli refers to the fact that the economy of a principality is closely related to its ability to preserve power, because “a prince too generous will not be a long time, he will remain poor andwill be despised ”(Machiavelli, 2004: 97). Likewise, as León Manríquez, Thomas Hobbes indicates also relates politics and economics, because among individual appetites concerning the state of nature is the search for greater wealth (2012: 101).
The concept of Political Economy (EP), according to Manríquez, is an Ornitorrinco term (Ibid: 100), born during the century of lights. It is called that because according to the perspective in which it is seen you can see a bird or a mammal. The above is due to the fact that for the logic of the State territorial borders constitute a necessary element of national sovereignty, while market logic demands the removal of political obstacles and other classes to trade, so both approaches enter into contradiction.
Joseph Schumpeter, contrary to political scientists or internationalists, understands the EP from the economist’s vision and describes it as a tool that analyzes the actions of governments and the mechanisms of political life with which they relate (2012: 47). The concept of political economy was to some extent different depending on the school that applied it, the Neomarxist P. Nikitin describes it as “the science of the development of social relations of production;that is, of the economic relations between men. Study the laws that govern the production and distribution of material goods in human society throughout the different phases of development ”(1982: 14).
Now that it has already been explained roughly, the EP, we can move on to the international political economy, which is the issue that concerns us, but that we could not correctly understand without the study of the EP. The EPI remembers as a serious study area in the 70s, because it had already had other exponents such as Adam Smith, Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, etc. What led to the reappearance of this concept were on the one hand the instability that followed the global economy after the oil crisis in 1973 and that both American and British academics understood that the interdisciplinary integration between the economy and politics was necessary toThrough international studies, Cohen stands out among these authors.
International Political Economy
The central assumption of it, in the perspective of international relations, is that decisions and economic relations are conflicting processes that generate distribution problems, since they produce winners and losers between the different nations. (Manríquez, 2014: 106).
The above is due to the fact that the principle of the economy is shortage, which generates resource distributions, which are necessarily the most just or convenient for certain countries. Now, despite the fact that the alleged central international political economy has been located, this is a competed concept. According to Ravenhill, the EPI is a field defined by its object of study;The interactions between the states and the market, whose definition suggests that the field should show some tolerance to different theoretical approaches and methodologies (S.F: 542). However, it was not the difference between American school (gringa) and the rest of the world was sharp, since the gringos made them a scientific concept.
Despite the above, Manríquez manages to identify 5 trends found in the contributions of contemporary EPI: 1) It is emerging as an area whose topics can be seriously investigated by politics, the economy international relations. 2) From a political perspective, institutions are fundamental because being perceived as an interest negotiation area. Likewise because both the State and the Market, you can study as institutions. 3) The EPI is part of assumption that the engine of man is not the ideas, but the material goods, therefore, focuses on the economic structure. 4) EPI postulates that they do not obey a 100% economic logic, but also politics. 5) EPI allows a more comprehensive study of the three levels of analysis (2014: 106). The points he cited previously are of the utmost importance because they help us clarify the concept of international political economy and by giving rigor through the unification of the term in 5 trends.
Since we have a better understanding of international political economy it is possible to analyze its scope and its relationship with political realism, institutional liberalism and neomarxism. Although the EPI has great value as an interdisciplinary approach, it does not reach the status of theory because it cannot be applied in a general way to the economy, politics or international relations. Therefore it is that it complements very well with theories of the RI. The realistic Hans Morgenthau, studying state power based on nine factors, including industrial capacity, that is, economic power. As regards Neorrealism, we have Robert Gilpin for, who the basis of power in the international system is technology, which causes a Catching UP phenomenon, which will promote the most advanced countries to seek to consolidate as political and military actorsrelevant. Also, Manríquez cites the hegemonic stability theory, which argues that the permanence of a specific international system depends largeLender of Last Resort.
An excellent example of the above is the Marshall Plan, in which the hegemonic power;The United States became the lender of the last instance of: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Germany of theWest. With the above, Americans generated international governance and consumers for their exports.
Regarding institutional neoliberalism with an international political economy approach, it becomes a very useful theory for the study of the creation of the European Union (EU), since it postulates that long -term economic institutions tend to venture into politicians and such wasThe case of which he started as the European Economic Community, created through Treaty of Rome in 1957 and later in 1993, joined the newly created EU. Finally, the international political economy is a key tool of RI’s neomarxism to explain that the underdevelopment of peripheral countries has been caused by the developed countries of the center, for example, the case of India and the underdevelopment to which it longI condemn the United Kingdom.
Now that it has been clear what is the EPI, such as a competed concept Manríquez found 5 trends to unite it, its theoretical scopes and as applied from different theories of the RI to a comment that will help us answer the question raised in thePresent:
The Whole Point of Studying International Political Economy Rather Than International RELATIONS IS TO TO EXTEND MORE WIDELY THE Conventional Limits of the Study of Politics, and the Conventional Concepts of Who Enough in Politics, and of How and by Whom Power Is Exercise to Influence Outcomes. Far from Being A Sub Discipline of International Relations, Ipe Should Claim That International RELATIONS ARE A Sub Discipline of Ipe (Strange 1994, 218).
So, if we asked Strange about the meaning that disciplines is what circumscribes to the other she would answer that international political economy includes international relations what makes them a subdiscipline. What are Strange’s arguments?. We can see it clearly embodied in the previous appointment because it mentions that the EPI does not give a more extensive and out of the conventional knowledge of the limits of politics or the RI. Also, in his work;The withdrawal of the State, he argues that he is succumbing to a loss of power against markets and transnational companies. According to Strange this displacement of the State occurred due to policies to encourage free market and among other sources of authority identifies transnational companies, telecommunications, risk managers, consultants and even mafias, as Kleemans mentions, function as an alternative government (2014: 36). Likewise, the author refers to international organizations such as the EU also play an important role in the withdrawal of the State.
Finally, despite all the arguments that Strange presents, I do not agree that international relations are a subdiscipline of international economic economic;First, because from the EP the actions of governments are studied, so the figure of the states and their interrelations are fundamental to provide an object of study to the political economic so that the RIs contain the EP. Second, because the epi is based on the fact that economic relations are conflicting because they generate winning and loser nations, once again here before studying economic relations we study the relations between nations, that is, the RIs, which subsequently provide us with a frameworkTo venture into international political economy. Third, because according to EPI of defining for its object of study: the relations between the states, so that if we do not wantpolitician, while RIs are able to understand the above, as well as economic relations. Fourth, so Manríquez mentions that the political economy does not even reach a theory because its postulates are not generalizable. Therefore, it would be illogical to contain an entire discipline with its own theories in an approach such as EPI. However, I do not doubt that with a little more experience if it has a significant theoretical reach. Fifth, because the combination of the theories of the IR and the international political economy approach shows that both can be complemented, but that if it had to be dispensed with some it would probably be more convenient to do so of the EPI because the idea that the economic one always determinesThe political and social is simply unsustainable. Sixth, because certainly Strange is right to indicate that globalization and market economy have introduced a lot that compete with the State, but even with this competition the same has maintained three distinctive aspects: the use of legitimate force, tax collectionand the determination of legality. The above shows that an approach like that of EPI is not yet enough to completely explain international dynamics, which even makes it a subdiscipline of international relations.
To lights of all the aforementioned, I conclude, without a doubt that the international political economy is still a subdiscipline of the RI, because the latter have a greater explanatory scope for themselves.
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