PO942 Theories and Issues in International Political Economy

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PO942Theories and Issues in International
Political Economy

• Week 5 Introduction to theorising in IPE
  structure and agency

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• Test of the core syllabus so far
• You are expected to have mastered the core
  reading (start catching up now and use the
  reading week for reading!)
• Good essays are likely to draw upon some of the
  supplementary sources (after p. 29 in the module
  guide)
• Time management is essential!
• Dont forget an abstract and a bibliography (see
  the PaIS Graduate Handbook)
• Proper referencing is expected (Handbook)
• The importance of an argument

THE TIMED ESSAY

• Question papers will be available for collection
  from the PaIS Graduate Office on Friday 10
  November at 15.00.
• There are six questions, covering the material
  from WEEKS 1-5 inclusive.
• You pick ONE question. Write an essay of
  2000-2500 words.
• The essay should be delivered to the PaIS
  Graduate Office on Monday 13 November by 10.00
• Essays received later than 10.00 will be marked
  late. A late timed essay is graded at ZERO
• The grade for the first timed essay constitutes
  17 per cent of the total for this module

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• This weeks objectives
• First of 6 sessions on theory in IPE.
• Understand the centrality/inescapability of
  theory in IPE - as a prelude to discussing rival
  theoretical perspectives in sessions 7-11.
• Appreciate that IPE needs to be located within
  broader discussions that characterise all social
  science.
• The structure-agency issue and how it impacts
  upon the study of IPE.
• How do we move from the domain of abstract
  theorising to the development of
  theoretically-informed discussion about the real
  world of IPE?

Week 7 Economic nationalism Week 8
Liberalism Week 9 Marxism Week 10 Critical
Theory Week 11 (a) Constructivism and (b)
Feminism
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THEORY
Why does the student of the complex world of IPE
need to be acquainted with theories of IPE?
Put another way, what can the scholar of IPE give
us that the journalist cannot? Are theories more
than the indulgences of academics? Doesnt
theorising take us away from the real world of
IPE?
Spend a few minutes discussing these issues in
small groups
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Each theory begins their analysis from a
particular assumption that determines the kind of
question that they ask, and therefore the answer
they find. They are like toy trains on separate
tracks, travelling from different starting points
and ending at different (predetermined)
destinations, and never crossing each others
path. Susan Strange States and Markets, 2nd
edition, London Pinter, 1994, p. 16.
Why?
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Epistemology Theory of knowledge and the status
of knowledge
Ontology Theory of being/existence
Methodology Strategy for acquisition of knowledge
Theory
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STRUCTURE AND AGENCY
AGENCY Action/conduct - the ability/capacity of
an actor to act consciously and in so doing
attempt to realise his/her/its intentions
implies will and autonomy. The capacity to make
choices Events are driven by the intentional
strategic acts of autonomous agents (or are the
consequence of the interactions of
agents) INTENTIONALISM
STRUCTURE Context/setting within which social,
political and economic events acquire meaning
the ordered nature (regularity) of social and
political relations over time Factors beyond the
control of actors Events arise in the context of
specific social / historical / cultural /
institutional conditions, which steer the
behaviour of actors actors have no independent
causal effect on events STRUCTURALISM
These are tendencies rather than actual positions
in the social sciences but it is instructive to
read texts to see if they exhibit either of these
tendencies
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What about this?
Men make their own history, but they do not make
it just as they please they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly encountered, given, and
transmitted from the past. Karl Marx The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon 1852, in
D McLellan, D (ed.) Karl Marx Selected Writings,
Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 300.
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social structures are both constituted by human
agency, and yet at the same time are the very
medium of its constitution Anthony Giddens New
Rules of Sociological Method, London Hutchinson,
1976, p.121
Structures are the product of human agency, but
human agency is constrained by the structures
within which it operates
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DISCUSSION EXERCISES

• Globalisation places pressures on Western states
  to roll back their welfare provision.
• 2. The ability of foreign investors to move
  capital and assets rapidly from one national
  context to another undermines the states
  capacity to raise revenue to fund the welfare
  state through corporate taxation
• 3. The perception on the part of many western
  governments that investors are mobile and will
  exit high taxation environments has driven a
  process of corporate tax cutting, thereby
  undermining the revenue basis of the welfare
  state
• 4. Government X, acting on its belief that
  investors will leave high-taxation environments
  for low-taxation environments, has reduced the
  rate of corporate taxation, with consequent
  effects for the revenue basis of the welfare
  state.

Globalisation and Taxation Derived from Hay
Political Analysis, Palgrave, 2002 pp.
114-115 Critically evaluate each of the
following accounts in turn in terms of their
treatment of structure and agency. Have the
agents been identified? How has the context for
action been established? What were the key
structural aspects/dimensions How far were agents
able to reshape their structural context? To what
extent were agents constrained by, bearers of
structures?
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Think back to some of the key events in the
evolution of the world economy over the last 150
yrs we looked at in weeks 2, 3 4. Pick an
appropriate event/episode about which youve done
a little reading and try and establish and
identify the relative importance of Agency and
Structure in explaining developments. What were
the key structural aspects/dimensions What or who
were the key agents How far were agents able to
reshape their structural context? To what extent
were agents constrained by, bearers of
structures?
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Have the agents been identified? How has the
context for action been established? What were
the key structural aspects/dimensions How far
were agents able to reshape their structural
context? To what extent were agents constrained
by, bearers of structures?
http//www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/E7A/10/ent_glo
baluk021205.pdf