Strange-Influenced Works

This page contains the searchable bibliography of academic and journalistic work that draws on Susan Strange’s theories and ideas. This bibliography remains a work in progress: if you have completed work, or know of works, that we should feature here, please let us know.

For copyright reasons, this site does not host any of Strange’s work, or of Strange-influenced work. Where available, we have provided links to external sites that host these works.

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The New Knowledge: Information, Data, and the Remaking of the Global Economy

Haggart, Blayne, Natasha Tusikov. Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. Open Access.

From the global geopolitical arena to the smart city, control over knowledge—particularly over data and intellectual property—has become a key battleground for the exercise of economic and political power. For companies and governments alike, control over knowledge—what scholar Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure—has become a goal unto itself. The rising dominance of the knowledge structure is leading to a massive redistribution of power, including from individuals to companies and states. Strong intellectual property rights have concentrated economic benefits in a smaller number of hands, while the ‘internet of things’ is reshaping basic notions of property, ownership, and control. In the scramble to create and control data and intellectual property, governments and companies alike are engaging in ever-more surveillance. The New Knowledge is a guide to and analysis of these changes, and of the emerging phenomenon of the knowledge-driven society. It highlights how the pursuit of the control over knowledge has become its own ideology, with its own set of experts drawn from those with the ability to collect and manipulate digital data. Haggart and Tusikov propose a workable path forward—knowledge decommodification—to ensure that our new knowledge is not treated simply as a commodity to be bought and sold, but as a way to meet the needs of the individuals and communities that create this knowledge in the first place.

Keywords: Knowledge; Structural Power, Power; Theory

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart and Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Structural Power, Power, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2020's
Source and Medium: Book

Year of Publication: 2023

'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

A Border Seeping in All Directions: Technologies of Separation Along the U.S.-Mexico Border in Ambos Nogales

Allison Fish. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 247-272. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

This chapter examines how legal and regulatory concerns have informed the design, selection, and deployment of technological assemblages used to monitor commercial movements along the U.S.-Mexico border in and around Ambos Nogales (Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona, United States). In the past few decades there has been an increasing concern regarding the balancing of market interests with national security at border ports-of-entry, leading to an intensified monitoring of these narrow commercial chokepoints. At the same time, the surveillance of commercial trade moving through these constrained channels has rapidly transitioned from face-to-face and paper-based mediums to complex systems composed of numerous digital and visualisation technologies. This chapter documents this transition in Ambos Nogales and, in doing so, examines how new technologies have historically been used to identify “trusted” logistics providers and monitor and “control” the flow of goods involved in legitimate commercial trade.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Allison Fish, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

A Strange Approach to Information, Network, Sharing, and Platform Societies

Bannerman Sara, Angela Orasch. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 53-80. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Susan Strange’s framework for international political economic analysis emphasises the importance of the interrelationships between what she saw as four interlinked structures and sources of power in the global economy: security, production, finance, and knowledge. As change occurs in one structure, it is important to systematically consider the implications of such changes in the other four structures. This chapter provides an overview of how the knowledge structure interacts with the other three structures of power. Second, it assesses the extent to which four major works related to transformations in the knowledge structure—Daniel Bell’s The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society (1976), Manuel Castells’ trilogy The Network Society (first published 1996–1998), Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks (2006), and Nick Srnicek’s Platform Capitalism (2017)—examine the interrelationships between Strange’s four structures, and the consequences for their overall conclusions.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security; Finance; Production

Contributor(s): Sara Bannerman, Angela Orasch, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Security, Finance, Production, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Conclusion: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Natasha Tusikov, Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Natasha Tusikov and Kathryn Henne, 285-306. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Our goal in this book was to spur an inter- and multi-disciplinary dialogue on the rising importance of knowledge in the global political economy and the role of knowledge in contemporary governance. Each of the chapters critically reflects on the control over knowledge as an important form of power, interactions between state and non-state actors, and knowledge regulation in its many forms. Knowledge regulation entails considering how and why knowledge is legitimised and by whom, the interests served, and the specific power structures underlying these arrangements. To understand the dynamics of a world dominated by the knowledge structure, we need to focus on the rules and norms that shape the legitimation, creation, use, and dissemination of knowledge, as well as those who are shaping these rules, which includes the state and non-state actors, and the interests being served.

Keywords: Knowledge

Contributor(s): Natasha Tusikov, Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Disinformation and Resistance in the Surveillance of Indigenous Protesters

Kathryn Henne, Jenna Harb. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 187-212. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

The U.S. and Canadian governments have long engaged in the surveillance of Indigenous peoples. Such practices have garnered public attention in light of recent events. This chapter reflects on two examples: protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline that crossed over the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the United States and the release of details regarding Project SITKA—a Canadian Royal Mounted Police “dataveillance” operation identifying and tracking Indigenous activists. It examines them to illuminate the strategic use of information, particularly disinformation and misinformation, by government actors, media, private security personnel, and protesters. In particular, the analysis highlights how settler colonialism informs the asymmetrical power dynamics at work, illustrating connections between Project SITKA and the Standing Rock protests.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Kathryn Henne, Jenna Harb, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

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

Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century

Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, editors. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Draws on Susan Strange’s conception of the knowledge structure to offer guiding theoretical insights for analyzing how the control of knowledge in its many forms is affecting global politics, society and economics.

Keywords: Theory; Knowledge; Structural Power, Power; Security

Contributor(s): Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Theory, Knowledge, Structural Power, Power, Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Edited Volume

Year of Publication: 2019

Internet Infrastructure and the Persistent Myth of U.S. Hegemony

Dwayne Winseck. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 93-120. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

According to many observers, economic globalisation and the liberalisation of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant role of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google has also led to charges of U.S. internet imperialism. This chapter, however, will argue 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, IXPs, ASN, data centres, and so on—is tilting increasingly towards the EU and BRICS countries and the “rest-of-the-world,” complicating views of hegemonic U.S. control of the internet and of what Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure.

Keywords: Knowledge; Structural Power, Power

Contributor(s): Dwayne Winseck, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

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

Precarious Ownership of the Internet of Things in the Age of Data

Tusikov, Natasha. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 121-148. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT)—internet-connected software embedded within physical products—has the potential to shift fundamentally traditional conceptions of ownership and the ways people can access, use, and control information. Drawing upon a knowledge regulation framework influenced by Susan Strange, this chapter argues that the IoT industry exemplifies the central role that knowledge governance now plays in the global political economy. The chapter examines how companies that own the knowledge integral to the IoT’s functionality (the software) control that knowledge through intellectual property laws, especially copyright, and the ubiquitous surveillance of their customers. These companies retain control over the software even after its purchase, meaning they have a newly expanded regulatory capacity to monitor and control how their products are used. The private post-purchase control that IoT companies exert over smart goods represents a significant change in private actors’ regulatory capacity to set rules governing knowledge.

Keywords: Knowledge; Production

Contributor(s): Natasha Tusikov, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Production, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Reflection I

Germain, Randall. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 81-89. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Randall Germain reflects on the chapters by Blayne Haggart, and Sara Bannerman and Angela Orasch.

Keywords: Knowledge

Contributor(s): Randall Germain, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Reflection II

Carr, Madeline. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 149-160. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Madeline Carr reflects on the chapters by Dwayne Winseck and Natasha Tusikov.

Keywords: Knowledge

Contributor(s): Madeline Carr, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Reflection III

Haggart, Blayne. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century. Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, editors. 213-218. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Blayne Haggart reflects on the chapters by Debora Halbert, and Jenna Harb and Kathryn Henne.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Reflection IV

Musto, Jennifer. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 273-284. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Jennifer Musto reflects on the chapters by Kathryn Henne and Allison Fish.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Jennifer Musto, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

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

Surveillance in the Name of Governance: Aadhaar as a Fix for Leaking Systems in India

Kathryn Henne. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 223-246. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

Many jurisdictions are employing biometric technologies to collect data about and verify the identities of social assistance recipients, with fraud prevention and cost savings serving as common justifications for doing so. This chapter explores the practices of building the infrastructure to monitor welfare beneficiaries, many of whom are vulnerable or marginalised populations. To do so, the chapter examines the Aadhaar system in India, which has issued over one billion unique identification numbers since being launched in 2010. The analysis illustrates a one-way expectation of knowledge and transparency (i.e., for citizens to disclose in order to access services), drawing attention to how nationalist agendas and forms of inequality inform who is subject to the state’s terms and conditions. In doing so, it considers how these forms of surveillance evince broader shifts in which state and non-state actors rely on knowledge to regulate subjects.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Kathryn Henne, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Taking Knowledge Seriously: Towards an International Political Economy Theory of Knowledge Governance

Haggart, Blayne. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 25-52. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

The treatment of knowledge—most notably commodified knowledge—as a source and vector of power is a key blind spot in our understanding of the global political economy. This chapter offers a theoretical framework, based on the work of Susan Strange, for considering the relationship between what she called the “knowledge structure” and the other key sources of political and economic power—security, production, and finance. This framework is applied to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (now the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (concluded in September 2018), demonstrating how a direct focus on knowledge governance reveals power relations and economic effects that are otherwise obscured.

Keywords: Theory; Knowledge

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Theory, Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2019

Weaponising Copyright: Cultural Governance and Regulating Speech in the Knowledge Economy

Halbert, Debora J. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 165-186. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

This chapter investigates the political and cultural implications of regulating speech via copyright. After an exploration of copyright governance within the context of Susan Strange’s knowledge structure framework, this chapter discusses cultural governance through copyright as a mode of censorship. I take up two recent examples where copyright was weaponised to curb speech. The first is an effort to control the speech of a controversial YouTube star. The second is an effort to curb the association of a cartoon character with white supremacy. In both cases, copyright performs a normative, not commercial, function, as copyright owners exert their control over their creative work to limit the expression of others. There is much to be troubled by regarding both the resurgence of white supremacy and the use of copyright to shape what can and cannot be expressed.

Keywords: Knowledge; Security

Contributor(s): Debora J. Halbert, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Knowledge, Security, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

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