International Political Economy: Debating the Past, Present and Future

The book gathers together a set of lively, provocative essays by leading voices in International Political Economy to debate the evolution of the field, its current state and its future directions.

Prompted by recent commentaries on the existence of a ’transatlantic divide’ in IPE between an ’American school’ and a ’British school’, the essays provide a wide-ranging discussion of whether it is useful to think of the field in these terms, what the ’American’ and ’British’ schools look like, what their achievements and shortcomings are, and what are the desirable future directions for IPE scholarship. The diverse responses to these questions reflect the ongoing vibrancy and diversity of the field of IPE, and open up an imaginative and engaging discussion about where we need to go from here.

Featuring contributions from the most influential scholars in the field from North America, Canada and the UK, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the cutting edge debates in contemporary international political economy.

Nicola Phillips is Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Political Economy Institute at the University of Manchester, and editor-in-chief of the journal New Political Economy (Routledge). Her most recent books are Development (co-authored with Anthony Payne, Polity Press, 2010), The Southern Cone Model: The Political Economy of Regional Capitalist Development in Latin America (Routledge, 2004) and, as editor, Globalizing International Political Economy (Palgrave, 2005).

Catherine Weaver is Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar and Research Coordinator at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. She is co-editor of the journal Review of International Political Economy (Routledge). Her most recent book is Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform (Princeton University Press, 2008).