Book Review: International Relations: Critical International Political Economy: Dialogue,Debate and Dissensus

In Critical International Political Economy, Stuart Shields et al. have engaged with a debate that has surfaced since Benjamin Cohen's IPE: An Intellectual History ¹ . This debate has seen the ‘field of IPE’ split into two camps: the British ‘critical’ and American ‘positivist’ schools. This volume rejects such a distinction, demonstrating how the term ‘critical’ should be revisited, questioning its ontological underpinnings and ‘gearing’ it toward greater ‘critical social enquiry’ which moves beyond the ‘field of IPE’ towards the IPE.

Such aims are achieved through a process of dialogue, debate and dissensus. Within ‘debate’, Lucian Ashworth outlines how the construction of a field of IPE, separated from its IR cousin, has meant that significant works of study around the IPE pre-1970 have been largely ignored. Highlighting works by authors such as H. N. Brailsford, Ashworth is able to demonstrate how works of IPE have featured throughout the period of the two world wars and beyond, but largely been ignored by scholars within the ‘field of IPE’ due to an assignment of being concerned with IR.

Within ‘dialogue’, Ian Bruff reconsiders ontological aspects of the ‘field of IPE’, enhancing the sociological aspects that can be drawn out by studying IPE. In his chapter, Bruff draws on critical social studies to highlight how Gramsci's use of common sense can help overcome the purely methodological distinction between ‘state’ and ‘market’; a distinction that must largely be tied to the analytical separation of the fields of ‘political science’ and ‘economics’ in the nineteenth century, reifying the relations inherent between these terms.

In ‘dissensus’, Owen Worth demonstrates how the so-called ‘British School’ has become based on orthodoxy, undermining its origin, which he places with the work of R. W. Cox. Such work in the eyes of Worth, borrowing from Marx, attempted both to ‘interpret and change’ the world, basing such critical analysis on a normative project. Worth states that such a project has been lost, with the ‘British School’ content to gear its work away from a positivist methodological approach without normative aspirations. Other chapters in this volume focus on post-structuralism, feminism, geography, Marxism and ideology.

This is a vital intervention at a time when the field of IPE is being unnecessarily torn into two camps. From the point of view of a young scholar, such a division is unsatisfactory and seemingly serves academic egoism as opposed to penetrating to the heart of the biggest questions facing the international political economy. At a time when the globe faces economic and social unrest, this call to arms, based upon a normative projection of creating a more equitable world, should be welcomed by all within the social sciences who seek similar principles of emancipation.