International Political Economy - Origin

Origin

IPE emerged as a heterodox approach to international studies during the 1970s as the 1973 world oil crisis and the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system alerted academics, particularly in the U.S., of the importance, contingency, and weakness of the economic foundations of the world order. IPE scholars such as Eugene Low asserted that earlier studies of international relations had placed excessive emphasis on law, politics, and diplomatic history. Similarly, neoclassical economics was accused of abstraction and being ahistorical. Drawing heavily on historical sociology and economic history, IPE proposed a fusion of economic and political analysis. In this sense, both Marxist and liberal IPE scholars protested against the reliance of Western social science on the territorial state as a unit of analysis, and stressed the international system.