Journal Article

'Susan Strange saw the financial crisis coming, Your Majesty': The Case for the LSE's Great Global Political Economist

Dyer, Nat. Real-World Economic Review 98 (2021): 92-111.

This paper makes three arguments. First, that Susan Strange (1923-1998), who founded the field of international political economy in the UK, is one of the principal thinkers who foresaw multiple aspects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath. She deserves credit for her prescience but has been overlooked. Second, that Strange's insight was not a series of lucky guesses but emerged from a rich and consistent theoretical and philosophical understanding of 'the political economy of the planet.' Third, that Strange should interest economists today and be thought of as a 'worldly philosopher' – after Heilbroner's term for the first political economists – rather than a figure in a sub-discipline of international relations. With the centenary of her birth in 2023, the time is ripe to reassess this great global political economist of the London School of Economics. It is time to put Strange back into the story we tell about financial globalisation and its discontents.

Keywords: Money and Finance

Contributor(s): Nat Dyer
Keywords: Money and Finance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2020's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2021

Women Thinkers and the Canon of International Thought: Recovery, Rejection, and Reconstitution

Hutchings, Kimberly. Patricia Owens. American Political Science Review 115, no. 2 (2021): 347–59.

Canons of intellectual 'greats' anchor the history and scope of academic disciplines. Within international relations (IR), such a canon emerged in the mid-twentieth century and is almost entirely male. Why are women thinkers absent from IR’s canon? We show that it is not due to a lack of international thought, or that this thought fell outside established IR theories. Rather it is due to the gendered and racialized selection and reception of work that is deemed to be canonical. In contrast, we show what can be gained by reclaiming women’s international thought through analyses of three intellectuals whose work was authoritative and influential in its own time or today. Our findings question several of the basic premises underpinning IR’s existing canon and suggest the need for a new research agenda on women international thinkers as part of a fundamental rethinking of the history and scope of the discipline.

Keywords: Theory; Other

Contributor(s): Kimberley Hutchings and Patricia Owens
Keywords: Theory, Other, Strange-Influenced Works, 2020's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2021

Globalization and the Rise of Integrated World Society: Deterritorialization, Structural-Power, and the Endogenization of International Society.

Babones, Salvatore, John H.S. Aberg. International Theory 11, no. 3 (2019): 293-317.

There is a widespread feeling that globalization represents a major system change that has or should have brought world society to the forefront of international relations theory. Nonetheless, world society remains an amorphous and undertheorized concept, and its potential role in shaping the structure of the international society of states has scarcely been raised. We build on Buzan's (2018, 2) master concept of 'integrated' world society ('a label to describe the merger of world and interstate society') to locate the integration of world society in the globalization of social networks. Following the advice of Buzan (2001) and Williams (2014), we use conceptual frameworks from international political economy to systematically explore the structure of integrated world society along six dimensions derived from Mann (1986) and Strange (1988): military/security, political, economic/production, credit, knowledge, and ideological. Our empirical survey suggests that, on each of these dimensions, power has centralized as it has globalized, generating steep global hierarchies in world society that are similar to those that characterize national societies. The centrality of the United States in the networks of world society makes it, in effect, the 'central state' of a new kind of international society that is endogenized within integrated world society.

Keywords: Globalization; Structural Power, Power; Money and Finance; Security; General Framework

Contributor(s): Salvatore Babones and John H.S. Aberg
Keywords: Globalization, Structural Power, Power, Money and Finance, Security, General Framework, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2019

Power and Counter-Power: Knowledge Structure and the Limits of Control.

David, Matthew, Cynthia Meersohn Schmidt. Sociological Research Online 24, no. 1 (2019): 21-37.

In this article, we explore Susan Strange's multidimensional and non-reductive international political economy (IPE) approach to structural power. Strange's key weakness is the failure to account for her knowledge structure's regulative form relative to her security, production and financial structures. We seek to develop Strange's account through the addition of Manuel Castells' account of digital network structures. Castells' morphogenic structural approach to digital network power helps to clarify the mechanisms by which today's knowledge structure achieves autonomy, internal regulation and generative capacity. This sociological completion of Strange's theory, an international socio-political economy approach as it were, better explains the capacity and limits of today's digital network knowledge structure to resist reduction to other structural interests. Strange's non-reductive structural approach to power is significant for sociology as it helps identify 'social order' in a global age, but an additional sociological dimension is also necessary for the fulfilment of Strange's theoretical project.

Keywords: Knowledge; Production; Security; Money and Finance; General Framework

Contributor(s): Matthew David and Cynthia Meersohn Schmidt
Keywords: Knowledge, Production, Security, Money and Finance, General Framework, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2019

Structural-Power and International Regimes.

Gwynn, Maria A. Journal of Political Power 12, no. 2 (2019): 200-223.

This paper revisits the international relations approach to structural power. In particular, it stresses the influence of international regimes, institutions and international law, on current understandings of structural power. The new approach broadens conceptions that see structural power solely as constraints; structures not only reflect the capabilities of actors that created them, but also generate new capabilities. The institutional context and viewing the 'structure' through the prism of international regime theory enables us to resolve conceptual issues that eluded classic scholars such as Waltz and Strange; and allows a more pluralistic view of actors' interactions in the international system.

Keywords: Authority; Authority vs Markets; Markets; Regimes; Structural Power, Power

Contributor(s): Maria A. Gwynn
Keywords: Authority, Markets, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2019

Developing Disaster: Power, Structural Violence, Insurance-Linked Securities, and the International Political Economy of the Disaster Politics Nexus.

Pasch, Korey. Journal of Natural Resources 8, nos. 1 & 2 (2018): 131-153.

This article presents an alternative framing of disasters as a form of structural violence resulting from the unequal distribution of structural power between various groups, organizations, institutions, and states in the contemporary global political economy. The article utilizes a theoretical framework that combines Johan Galtung’s typology of violence and Susan Strange’s conceptualization of structural power to open up new space for analysis in the disaster politics nexus. The article applies its framework to explore how an understanding of disasters as a form of violence problematizes trends within mainstream disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies. Specifically, the article examines the integration of financial risk-sharing mechanisms into the disaster politics nexus through new public–private partnerships between insurance and reinsurance firms, international financial institutions, and governments to transfer catastrophic risk to global capital markets. The article seeks to repoliticize these changes and bring questions of power back into the larger conversation surrounding DRR policies.

Keywords: Security; Structural Power, Power; General Framework

Contributor(s): Korey Pasch
Keywords: Security, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2018

Incorporating the Study of Knowledge into the IPE Mainstream, or, When Does a Trade Agreement Stop Being a Trade Agreement?

Haggart, Blayne. Journal of Information Policy 7 (2017): 176-203.

This chapter argues that the global financial crisis of 2008 presented a unique opportunity to re-visit them and to re-evaluate Strange's core argument about the enduring structural power of the US in global finance. It explains how this power was particularly apparent in two international developments that took place at the height of the crisis: the US international lender-of-last-resort role and the absence of a dollar crisis. The chapter argues that an analysis of these two developments not only demonstrates the validity of Strange's argument about the US position in global finance but also provides a chance to clarify some analytical aspects of Strange's concept of structural power. The experience of the 2008 crisis demonstrates how structural power in global finance provides a number of benefits to the US, ranging from the unique influence it had in politics of crisis resolution to the unusual macroeconomic flexibility that stemmed from foreign support of the dollar.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Authority; Markets; Knowledge; Theory; General Framework

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Authority, Markets, Knowledge, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

Internet Freedom and Copyright Maximalism: Contradictory Hypocrisy or Complementary Policies?

Haggart, Blayne, Michael Jablonski. The Information Society 33, no. 3 (2017): 103-118.

U.S. advocacy for increased international intellectual property protection and a free and open Internet has been criticized as being inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst. Placing U.S. copyright and Internet policy in a historical context and using Susan Strange's concepts of structural power and knowledge structures, we argue that copyright and Internet policies cannot be analyzed in isolation, but are intimately and inextricably linked forms of knowledge regulation. All knowledge regulation policies involve balancing access and restriction. Our analysis suggests that the current U.S. policy of Internet freedom and strong copyright protection represents a particular, historically situated strategy designed to exert structural power in the global information economy: Free flow of information creates markets by exposure to intellectual properties, while copyright secures economic benefit to copyright holders from the flow. We argue that a full and honest debate over issues of information access requires acknowledgment of contemporary and conflicting values, with the realization that different societies and interests will weigh access and dissemination differently. Recognizing as legitimate and incorporating these different perspectives into the global governance structures of the Internet comprise the key challenge facing those who favor truly democratic global Internet governance.

Keywords: Knowledge; Internet Governance; Theory; Structural Power, Power

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart and Michael Jablonski
Keywords: Knowledge, Internet Governance, Theory, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

Introduction to the Special Issue: Rise of the 'Knowledge Structure': Implications for the Exercise of Power in the Global Political Economy

Haggart, Blayne. Journal of Information Policy 7 (2017): 164-175.

Somewhat paradoxically, the implications of knowledge governance's changing role for the exercise of power in the Information Age remains underappreciated outside those scholars and policymakers directly engaged with these specific areas. This special issue brings together political scientists and communication scholars to consider the issue of knowledge governance through the theoretical framework of Susan Strange. This introduction examines the treatment of knowledge-governance issues within the mainstream of International Political Economy scholarship and briefly contextualizes the contribution of each article in this special issue.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Authority; Markets; Knowledge; Theory; General Framework

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Authority, Markets, Knowledge, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

The Curious Case of Monopoly Rights as Free Trade: The TPP and Intellectual Property and Why It Still Matters

Halbert, Debora J. Journal of Information Policy 7 (2017): 204-227.

Using the framework of a knowledge structure as conceptualized by Susan Strange, this article addresses the loss of flexibilities in international intellectual property (IP) regimes and the corresponding global criminalization of IP as serious topics of concern. The knowledge structure of IP frames a very specific type of global political economy. First, Strange's approach to international political economy as it relates to IP is developed. Second, a brief history of global IP as a trade-related issue is discussed, including the current status of the Transpacific Partnership. Finally, some future trends that may suggest global shifts in the knowledge structure worth watching are investigated.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Knowledge

Contributor(s): Debora J. Halbert
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

The Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure

Winseck, Dwayne. Journal of Information Policy 7 (2017): 228-267.

According to many observers, economic globalization and the liberalization of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant roles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have also led to charges of US internet imperialism. This article, however, argues that while these internet giants dominate some of the most popular internet services, the ownership and control of core elements of the internet infrastructure—submarine cables, internet exchange points, autonomous system numbers, datacenters, and so on—are tilting increasingly toward the EU and BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the rest of the world, complicating views of hegemonic US control of the internet and what Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Knowledge

Contributor(s): Dwayne Winseck
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

The Political Economy of Currency Internationalisation: The Case of the RMB

Germain, Randall, Herman Mark Schwartz. Review of International Studies 43, no. 3 (2017): 765-787.

The rise of China has sparked a debate about the economic and political consequences for the global economy of the internationalisation of the renminbi. We argue that the dominant focus of this literature – primarily the external conditions and requirements for a national currency to become an international currency – misspecifies the connections between the international and domestic requirements for currency internationalisation, as well as the potential to become the dominant international reserve currency. We correct this oversight by developing an integrated theoretical framework that highlights the domestic adjustment costs which a state must accommodate before its currency can carry the weight of internationalisation. These costs constitute a critical element of an international currency’s ‘political economy’, and they force states to negotiate contentious social trade-offs among competing domestic claims on finite public resources in a sustainable manner. Our analysis suggests that the likelihood of China being able to successfully negotiate the social costs associated with running a fully internationalised currency is currently very low, precisely because this will place unacceptable pressure on groups benefiting from the economic and political status quo. This further suggests that the American dollar will remain unchallenged as the global economy’s pre-eminent international currency for the foreseeable future.

Keywords: Money and Finance; Economic Competition

Contributor(s): Randall Germain and Herman Mark Schwartz
Keywords: Money and Finance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2017

Transnational Corporations and the Proliferation of Bilateral Investment Treaties: More Than a Bit Influential

Jacobs, Michael. Transnational Corporations Review 8, no. 2 (2016): 93-111.

To date, over 2500 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have been signed. The popularity of these treaties raises the question, what has driven the proliferation of BITs? Previous research argues that the proliferation of BITs is the product of competition for capital among developing states. This study hypothesises that the developed state transnational corporations (TNCs) are driving the spread of BITs. The results from a time series logistic regression support the TNC hypothesis, adding support to the argument that transnationals should be recognised as major actors in the international political economy.

Keywords: Corporations; Money and Finance; Structural Power, Power; Authority; Markets

Contributor(s): Michael Jacobs
Keywords: Corporations, Money and Finance, Structural Power, Power, Authority, Markets, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2016

Dollar Hegemony: A Power Analysis

Norrlof, Carla. Review of International Political Economy 21, no. 5 (2014): 1042-1070.

The dollar has been the world's first currency since the end of World War II, possibly since the inter-war period, and is the leading currency today. A growing chorus of observers believes this dollar-centered order is coming to an end. While much commentary revolves around changes in the distribution of power, measures are only loosely related to the material basis for currency dominance. A proper understanding of the dollar's global role requires a quantitative assessment of the United States' monetary capabilities and currency influence relative to potential rivals. Moreover, while there is general recognition that a shift in power capabilities away from the United States to another actor in the international system is an insufficient, although necessary, condition for the prevailing currency hierarchy to reverse, there exists no systematic exploration of how power is exercised when converting monetary capabilities into currency influence. This paper offers a systematic assessment of the monetary capabilities and currency influence of all countries in the world as well as an analysis of how the three faces of power sustain dollar hegemony.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Money and Finance

Contributor(s): Carla Norrof
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Money and Finance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2014

Reconsidering the Ontological Foundations of International Energy Affairs: Realist Geopolitics, Market Liberalism and a Politico-Economic Alternative

Stoddard, Edward. European Security 22, no. 4 (2013): 437-463.

Accounts of international energy affairs often present a divergence between geopolitical/realist and liberal market-based approaches. This article suggests that this state of affairs reflects the (often implicit) legacies of realist and rationalist international thought in the study of energy affairs and the corresponding political and economic ontological hierarchies of analytical frameworks employed in different accounts of energy politics. Consequently, this article recommends a greater explicit attention to scientific ontological foundations in studies of energy relations and, in line with the calls of Keating et al. and Strange, suggests an approach based in the literature on I/GPE, which merges political and economic ontological axioms, as most apposite for the study of energy affairs. Building on this framework, and giving particular examples from the context of Eurasian energy politics, this article then outlines a number of politico-economic heuristic models (structural diversity, territorial non-coincidence, milieu-shaping and market-authority bargains) that are particularly useful concepts in helping to explain the intricate interactions of international energy relations.

Keywords: Authority ; Markets; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Realism; Liberalism; Energy

Contributor(s): Edward Stoddard
Keywords: Authority , Markets, Structural Power, Power, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2013

Return of the State? The G20, the Financial Crisis and Power in the World Economy

Nordberg, Donald. Review of Political Economy 24, no. 2 (2012): 289-302.

The Group of Twenty and the new world order it is meant to signify have prompted a wave of triumphalism around the world from those who, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, bemoan the influences of ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ and from neo-Marxists, who view the economic crisis as a harbinger of the resurgence of states over markets. A little over a decade ago, however, the late doyenne of international political economists, Susan Strange, wrote eloquently about the reasons why the state was in retreat, its structural power draining away in favour of markets. Have the intervening dozen years, with their recurrent crises in markets and corporate governance, demonstrated the need for a return of the state? This analysis of the G20 London communiqué, using criteria that Strange advanced, suggests that far from asserting a return of the state, the G20 signifies its persistent weakness and concludes that the G20 leaders, at least, sense a more complex network of power relationships, and that structural power rests in the network.

Keywords: Authority; Markets; Money and Finance; Global governance

Contributor(s): Donald Nordberg
Keywords: Authority, Markets, Money and Finance, Global governance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2012

The Changing Position of the State and State Power in Global Affairs - Views from Two Scholars in International Political Economy

Du Plessis, Marthinus J. South African Journal of Military Studies 28, no. 1 (2012): 146-167.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; General Framework; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Marthinus J. Du Plessis
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, General Framework, Authority vs Markets, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2012

The Transatlantic Divide: Why Are American And British IPE so Different?

Cohen, Benjamin J. Review of International Political Economy 14, no. 2 (2007): 197-219.

Based on a lecture presented to the inaugural meeting of the International Political Economy Society, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 17 November 2006.

Keywords: Political Economy; Theory

Contributor(s): Benjamin J. Cohen
Keywords: Political Economy, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2007

Caught up in the Madness? State Power and Transnational Organized Crime in the Work of Susan Strange

Friman, H. Richard. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 28, no. 4 (2003): 473-490.

When Susan Strange and I looked into the relationships between firms and States during the late 1980s, we were primarily concerned to signal that the rivalry among States for control over the means of wealth creation had grown to the point where it had overtaken such traditional concerns as control over territory, to become the predominant driver of diplomacy. We argued that States had moved far from the days when suspicion of the multinationals' power had interfered with bargaining relationships, to a position where incentives were being showered on the firms to influence their decisions about where to invest. These were also the days when the UN was still struggling to complete a Code of Conduct for the MNEs (it never succeeded) and when trade talks within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were beginning to link trade relationships with the consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Keywords: Security

Contributor(s): H. Richard Friman
Keywords: Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2003

Dependency Today-Finance, Firms, Mafias and the State: A Review of Susan Strange's Work from a Developing Country Perspective

Leander, Anna. Third World Quarterly 22, no. 1 (2001): 115-128.

This is an analysis of how the global strategies of Multi-national Enterprises (MNE's) affect the power relationship between MNE's and states in the context of increasing trans-national economic integration.

Keywords: Money and Finance; Trade; Structural Power, Power; Economic Development

Contributor(s): Anna Leander
Keywords: Money and Finance, Trade, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2001

The Westfailure System

Strange, Susan. Review of International Studies 25, no. 3 (1999): 345-354.

In this posthumously published essay, Strange briefly outlines the parallel histories of the territorial system of states and the economic system of markets and suggests that until the last quarter of the twentieth century each benefited the other. However, as she often argued in the 1990s, the political system is now failing in three areas: the states system is increasingly unable to manage instability in the global financial system; the sovereign system is unable to deal effectively with globalised environmental problems; and lastly the political system's interaction with the global market is producing widening socio-economic inequality across the global system. However, only by understanding the role of non-state authority through the study of both international and comparative political economy and a move away from International Relation's state-centricism can the Westfailure system be understood and alternatives assessed. Reprinted in: Authority and Markets: Susan Strange’s Writings on International Political Economy, edited by Roger Tooze and Christopher May. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Keywords: Corporations; Global Governance; States; Westfailure System; International Relations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Corporations, Global Governance, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1999

Globaloney? (Review Essay)

Strange, Susan. Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 4 (1998): 704-711.

In this review of the influential Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson Globalisation in Question (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996) alongside two other books arguing a similar position, Strange makes a major intervention in the debate over the 'myth' of globalisation. Arguing that the authors (like others) miss the deterritorialisation of commercial power in the global system, Strange allows that there needs to be a corrective to the extreme globalisation thesis of complete transformation, but that a failure to examine what is really happening in the global political economy, while relying on aggregated and out-of-date statistics has led too many political economists to fail to recognise the very real changes in the balance of power between multinational corporations and states. For Strange it is this balance of power that is of major importance for understanding globalisation.

Keywords: Globalization; Theory; Corporations; States; Transnational Corporations; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Globalization, Theory, Corporations", States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1998