Introduction
The middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century may turn out to be more of a turning point for the global political economy than anticipated when capitalism became virtually global at the end of the Cold War. Given contemporary nationalist and protectionist demands by Donald Trump’s White House, Theresa May’s Brexit countdown, and right-wing regimes in parts of the newer European Union (EU), any ‘New Global Partnership’ may be different than envisaged by the United Nations (UN; Puplampu et al. 2017). Frustrated with slow reforms, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have created now-functioning economic governance institutions of their own, not just to meet needs insufficiently covered by existing institutions but also as a means of integrating their philosophies of development into the governance landscape (Chin 2014; Abdenur and Folly 2015). At the same time, massive migrations around the middle of the second decade, especially towards the EU, have been intensified by fears of religion-based terrorism. This has produced nationalist social movements united in their scepticism towards the compromises necessary to sustain existing political governance—or at least management—of the world economy. Moves such as President Trump’s declaration that the United States (US) will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and an intensifying US-China trade war add fuel to this fire.
The political uncertainty is bolstered further by the contradictory economic forces at work. On the one hand, the world economy faces a variety of unprecedented headwinds, including:The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) most recent World Economic Outlook (2017) additionally highlights ‘persistent structural problems’ in the world economy and worries political will is insufficient to deploy the economic policies necessary to address them. These fears are pertinent at the regional level as well, with the OECD (2017) arguing that continuing high levels of unemployment in the Eurozone may slow the region’s growth prospects for years to come.
- the exponential (long-term?) decline of established economic centres like the EU, Japan, and the US;
- continued reshuffling of what is ‘emerging’: classes, companies, economies, powers, even universities but also inequalities and non-communicable diseases (NCDs);
- relentless technological change and disruption, from the Internet and mobile phones to FinTech and the Internet of Things; and
- new and old ‘global’ issues, among them climate change, drugs, guns, gangs, migration, religious fundamentalism, and water.
On the other hand, signs of progress are also apparent. The decade-long rise of the BRICs (later BRICS) has advanced rebalancing among countries (Gray and Murphy 2013), if not necessarily within them. The world’s most marginal continent, Africa, appears to be undergoing the anticipated renaissance (Shaw 2012): The Economist’s 2011 description of Africa as the ‘hopeful’ rather than the ‘hopeless’ is verified, at least in some areas (e.g. access to water), by progress made towards achieving economic and social development goals (World Bank 2017). Speaking of development, and in response to encouragement from international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (www.beyond2015.org) and think tanks (www.post2015.org), the UN has articulated new development desiderata under the banner of ‘sustainable development’ (http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/). These depict a finer-tuned approach to long-term development than did the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially in highlighting the manifold ways in which environmental disregard hinders economic progress in the developing world. Finally, The Economist (2017, 19) also recently noted that ‘for the first time since 2010, rich world and developing economies will put on synchronised growth spurts’.
This handbook captures the state of analysis of contemporary International Political Economy (IPE) which has not only been transformed by the end of bipolarity and the rise of emerging markets but continues to be buffeted by the forces described earlier. Both the analytic and existential ‘worlds’ of IPE are changing in myriad ways. For example, in June 2018, the threat to established multilateralism was palpable as President Trump ‘made nice’ with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, while publicly insulting Canada’s Justin Trudeau, leaving the G7 summit early and promising, then refusing, to sign a G7 joint statement. As analysts and advocates of IPE, we need to ponder how such new (and mercurial) alliances among strongmen affect the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the G20, not to mention the BRICS and South-South cooperation. But we must also grapple with the implications of the reverse situation: cooperative strongmen may indeed threaten global governance, but competition among them can ‘also raise the risk of confrontation between them’ (MacKinnon 2018, A13). ‘Hawkish’ domestic reputations left India’s PM Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping little room to manoeuvre in resolving a border dispute in 2017 (Stuenkel 2017), threatening conflict at the annual BRICS summit and raising questions about when allegiance to multilateral clubs will be able to overcome such hurdles—and when they will not.
Our authors juxtapose a set of overlapping perspectives to consider whether and how the several ‘worlds’, from ‘old’ North Atlantic/North Pacific to the ‘emerging’ or ‘Second World’ (Khanna 2009), have grown together or apart as global crises and reordering proceeded. Every chapter includes a contemporary update on both existential and theoretical developments: from ‘Asian’ to ‘global’ crises, from newly industrialised countries to BRIC/S and Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia (MIKTA). Our contributors include both established and rising scholars in IPE. Their work spans a variety of disciplines and draws on both academic and practical experience in global economic affairs. Furthermore, in line with developments in IPE, many of our contributors come from the Global South, whether in diasporas or not. In preparing this handbook, then, we hope to reinforce the pressure towards a more ‘global International Relations (IR)’ as advocated by Amitav Acharya (2014), Arlene Tickner and Ole Wæver (2009), Parag Khanna (2009; www.paragkhanna.com/), Oliver Stuenkel (2015; www.postwesternworld.com) and others.
The handbook is the third in Palgrave’s new series of Handbooks on IPE, preceded by volumes on the International Political Economy of Energy (Van de Graaf et al. 2016) and on Critical International Political Economy (Cafruny et al. 2016). It is informed by Timothy Shaw’s IPE series at Palgrave Macmillan (now part of Springer Nature: www.palgrave.com/ipe), which after 35 years continues to attract 20–30 new titles each year. That series always focused on the Global South, previously the ‘Third World’. Symptomatically, eight of its hardback ‘classics’ were reissued in paperback in late 2013, accompanied by new prefaces. In other words, much remains to be done in understanding the issues and geographical areas of the Global South, and many of the chapters in this volume explicitly address this task. At the same time, we recognise that understanding the Global South in absentia of their interaction with the Global North is insufficient if we want to understand the growing complexity of today’s economy and the political decisions which guide it. Consequently, from Brexit to climate change to macroeconomic imbalances, this volume explores issues where the Global North continues to both generate and hold responsibility for solving global problems and/or where South-North cooperation will prove crucial in the future.
This overview provides an introduction to the four themes explored by authors in this handbook. First, we discuss the development of contemporary IPE theory and, especially, how both theories and concepts have evolved in line with manifold changes in the global economy. Second, we consider elements of global reordering arising from global economic shocks of the 1990s, the rise of the BRICs/BRICS in the 2000s, and the subsequent global financial crisis (GFC) and (still) ongoing recovery. Third, we address the numerous and diverse global crises policymakers must confront, ranging from food insecurity to financial regulation to development. Fourth, we engage with several specific issues in contemporary IPE, where our authors alternately provide a new take on established issues (e.g. globalisation) or point out new areas whose micro- and macroeconomic implications are likely to be substantial. We conclude our overview by identifying five changes which should shape how we understand, teach, and practise IPE, particularly related to the Global South, in the coming decades.
Contemporary IPE Theory
Given the changes to the world economy—and the political context within which it is regulated and managed—it is unsurprising that scholars are redefining the boundaries of IPE theory to incorporate new issues, actors, institutions, and levels of governance. Such novel forms of analysis are increasingly demanded as orthodox, established disciplines like IR remain hesitant to look outside the state and the formal. Several trends are apparent in the existing literature, which are also reflected in the contributio...