Theory

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

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

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

Introduction

Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov. In Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, 1-20. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

While the control of knowledge is becoming the dominant means by which economic, political, and social control is exerted globally, the mechanisms through which this is happening—including intellectual property rights, state and commercial surveillance, digitisation and datafication, and a nearly ubiquitous internet mediating human interactions—are often examined separately instead of as part of a larger phenomenon of knowledge governance. This edited volume brings experts in these areas from across the social sciences to explore these areas as forms of knowledge governance, by adopting the understudied (at least from a knowledge-governance perspective) work of the late International Political Economy scholar Susan Strange, notably her concept of a knowledge structure. In this chapter, we present an introduction to and critique of Strange’s theory of the knowledge structure and offer an overview of this volume’s chapters.

Contributor(s): Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, Natasha Tusikov, Editor: Blayne Haggart, Editor: Kathryn Henne and Editor: Natasha Tusikov
Keywords: Theory, Knowledge, Strange-Influenced Work, 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

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

Diagnosing the Human Condition in a Dynamic Global System

Pauly, Louis W. In Susan Strange and the Future of Global Political Economy: Power, Control and Transformation, edited by Randall Germain, 183-192. London: Routledge, 2016.

Virgil's 'rerum cognoscere causas,' adorns the crest of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 'To know the cause of things' expressed an abiding aspiration for Susan Strange, even if she doubted all absolute truth-claims. In the mid-1970s, after she had rejoined her alma mater as a lecturer in the International Relations Department, I attended her course on 'The Politics of International Business.' As we know now, she was then helping to lay the foundations for a field that would soon be called 'international political economy.' In other places during the same period of time, Professors Kindleberger, Cox, Gilpin, Keohane, Krasner, Katzenstein, and Cohen were also working to carve out the intellectual space where history, economics, international relations, political science, and management studies would fruitfully intersect during the next four decades (Cohen 2008a).

Keywords: Theory

Contributor(s): Louis W. Pauly and Editor: Randall Germain
Keywords: Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2016

Susan Strange and the Future of IPE

Germain, Randall. In Susan Strange and the Future of Global Political Economy: Power, Control and Transformation, edited by Randall Germain, 19-36. London: Routledge, 2016.

This chapter explains how contributors use Susan Strange's rich conceptual framework to explore the financial crisis and its aftermath, and reflect critically on broader contributions which her work has made to the discipline of international political economy (IPE). Susan Strange's life and times spanned the most tumultuous decades of the twentieth century. Susan Strange spent much of her academic career lamenting and cataloguing the serial failure of scholarship in political science, international relations and international economics to understand how the world and its political economy had changed or was in the process of changing. The global demand for American credit during the financial crisis both fed off and reinforced the pre-existing American capacity to generate and deploy the financial resources. The Strange was an inveterate optimist that things on the ground could be improved upon, if only analysis was sound and the determination to act was both robustly held and appropriately grounded in sustainable values that were widely shared.

Keywords: Political Economy; Theory; Structural Power, Power; General Framework

Contributor(s): Randall Germain and Editor: Randall Germain
Keywords: Political Economy, Theory, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2016

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

Towards a New Understanding of Structural-Power: 'Structure is What States Make of It.'

Pustovitovskij, Andrej, Jan-Frederik Kremer. In Power in the 21st Century. Edited by Enrico Fels, Jan-Frederik Kremer, Katharina Kronenberg, 59-78. Berlin: Polity Press, 2012.

The study of power in International Relations (IR) can be seen as the search for the cornerstone of our discipline. Hardly any theory or approach of IR can claim evidence and explanatory power without at least implicitly addressing the question of the ontology of power. In this article we will, by introducing our concept of structural power, offer a new path towards understanding a concept famously introduced in the 1980s by Susan Strange (1987, 1988a, b), but still lacking clarity in operationalization and application. By addressing the questions: “How does structural power work?/How does structural power change the rules of the game?/How is structural power constituted?/Through which kind of transmission channels does structural power affect the power position of states?/What are the underlying power resources of structural power? What is the relationship between structural power and other forms of power?”, our approach to structural power will, by responding this questions offer a new approach towards the study of power in IR and will foster the understanding of a concept which can help to understand international relations in an interdependent age. By doing so, we will present a concept of structural power which differs from the concept of Susan Strange, but which is also able to enclose her ideas about power structures in world politics, by examining the importance of states’ needs and goods for their structural power position in international relations. The aim of this article is to foster a new understanding of structural power, by introducing a concept of structural power independent from the assumed, but empirically not proofed existence of a specific number of dominant power (sub-)structures and certain resources, but based on a model of structure able to enclose changes in power structures in international affairs.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; Theory; General Framework

Contributor(s): Andrej Pustovitovskij, Jan-Frederik Kremer, Editor: Enrico Fels, Editor: Jan-Frederik Kremer and Editor: Katharina Kronenberg
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

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

Alternative Directions in the Study of the Global Political Economy

Denemark, Robert A. In Rethinking Global Political Economy. Robert A. Denemark, Kurt Burch, Mary Ann Tétreault, Kenneth P. Thomas, editors. 237-245. London: Taylor & Francis, 2003.

Keywords: Political Economy; Theory

Contributor(s): Robert A. Denemark, Editor: Robert A. Denemark, Editor: Kurt Burch, Editor: Mary Ann Tétreault and Editor: Kenneth P. Thomas
Keywords: Political Economy, Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2003

Authority and Markets: Interpreting the Work of Susan Strange

Tooze, Roger, Christopher May. In Authority and Markets: Susan Strange's Writings of International Political Economy, edited by Roger Tooze and Christopher May. 1-16. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Introduction to a collection of 16 of Susan Strange's works, divided into five sections, each featuring an introduction and commentary by Roger Tooze and Christopher May

Keywords: Political Economy; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Other

Contributor(s): Roger Tooze, Christopher May, Editor: Roger Tooze and Editor: Christopher May
Keywords: Theory, Other, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2002

Authority and Markets: Susan Strange's Writings of International Political Economy

Strange, Susan. Edited by Roger Tooze, Christopher May. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Collection of 16 works by Susan Strange, with an introduction and commentaries by Roger Tooze and Christopher May.

Keywords: Political Economy; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Other

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Roger Tooze and Editor: Christopher May
Keywords: Political Economy, Structural Power, Power, Theory, Other, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Edited Volume

Year of Publication: 2002

Criticizing US Method and Thought in International Relations: Why a Trans-Atlantic Divide Narrows IR's Research Subject

Verbeek, Bertjan. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 139-158. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory; United States; International Relations

Contributor(s): Bertjan Verbeek, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, United States, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Going Beyond States and Markets to Civil Societies?

Shaw, Timothy M., Sandra J. MacLean. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 391-406. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory; Authority; Markets; States; Civil Society

Contributor(s): Timothy M. Shaw, Sandra J. MacLean, Maria Nzomo, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, Authority, Markets, States, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Ideology, Knowledge and Power in International Relations and International Political Economy

Tooze, Roger. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 175-194. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory; Knowledge; Political Economy; International Relations

Contributor(s): Roger Tooze, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, Knowledge, Political Economy, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Introduction: Looking Beyond the Confines

Lawton, Thomas, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 1-16. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory

Contributor(s): Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy Verdun, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Reflections: Blurring the Boundaries and Shaping the Agenda

Earnest, David C., Louis W. Pauly, James N. Rosenau, Thomas C. Lawton, Amy C. Verdun. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 409-420. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory

Contributor(s): David C. Earnest, Louis W. Pauly, James N. Rosenau, Thomas C. Lawton, Amy C. Verdun, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Strange's Oscillating Realism: Opposing the Ideal - and the Apparent

Guzzini, Stefano. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 237-250. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Theory; Political Economy; Structural Power, Power; International Relations; Realism

Contributor(s): Stefano Guzzini, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Theory, Political Economy, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

The Doubtful Handshake: From International to Comparative Political Economy?

Walzenback, G.P.E. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 391-412. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: International Institutions; Theory; Structural Power, Power

Contributor(s): G.P.E. Walzenback, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: International Institutions, Theory, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

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