Blind spots in International Political Economy: first landmark Special Issue published in RIPE

In March 2019 SPERI was honoured to welcome a group of world-leading scholars to ºù«Ӱҵ for a landmark workshop that reflected on blind spots in the field of political economy.

Photo of political protest

SPERI hosted the workshop in collaboration with the editorial boards of the leading journals,  and . The workshop has led to a double special issue of RIPE and NPE on ‘Blind spots in International Political Economy’.

Today, the  has been published in RIPE, and the NPE Special Issue will follow later in the autumn. Both Special Issues are co-edited by the organisers of the ‘blindspots’ initiative: Professor Genevieve LeBaron (SPERI, University of ºù«Ӱҵ), Professor Colin Hay (SPERI, University of ºù«Ӱҵ), Professor JacquelineBest (University of Ottawa) and Professor Daniel Mügge (University of Amsterdam).

The RIPE special issue is entitled, Blind spots in IPE: Marginalized perspectives and neglected trends in contemporary capitalism, and the abstract is below. 

Which blind spots shape scholarship in International Political Economy (IPE)? That question animates the contributions to a double special issue—one in the Review of International Political Economy, and a companion one in New Political Economy.

The global financial crisis had seemed to vindicate broad-ranging IPE perspectives at the expense of narrow economics theories. Yet the tumultuous decade since then has confronted IPE scholars with rapidly-shifting global dynamics, many of which had remained underappreciated. We use the Blind Spots moniker in an attempt to push the topics covered here higher up the scholarly agenda—issues that range from institutionalized racism and misogyny to the rise of big tech, intensifying corporate power, expertise-dynamics in global governance, assetization, and climate change.

Gendered and racial inequalities as blind spots have a particular charge. There has been a self-reinforcing correspondence between topics that have counted as important, people to whom they matter personally, and the latter’s ability to build careers on them. In that sense, our mission is not only to highlight collective blind spots that may dull IPE’s capacity to theorize the current moment. It is also a normative one—a form of disciplinary housekeeping to help correct both intellectual and professional entrenched biases.

. Initially, all articles in both special issues will be available open-access.

The forthcoming NPE special issue will be entitled, Seeing and not-seeing like a political economist: the historicity of contemporary political economy and its blind spots. 

The full list of contributors for both special issues is below.

Special issue editors Title Institution
Jacqueline Best Professor of Political Science University of Ottawa
Colin Hay Professor of Political Analysis University of ºù«Ӱҵ
Genevieve LeBaron Professor of Politics University of ºù«Ӱҵ
Daniel Mügge Professor of Political Arithmetic University of Amsterdam
Special issue contributors Title Institution
Maha Rafi Atal Postdoctoral Research Fellow Copenhagen Business School
Kate Bedford Professor of Law University of Birmingham
Gurminder K. Bhambra Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies University of Sussex
André Broome Associate Professor of International Political Economy University of Warwick
Andrew Gamble Professor of Politics University of ºù«Ӱҵ
Marieke de Goede Professor of Politics University of Amsterdam
Eric Helleiner Professor in Political Science University of Waterloo
Kristen Hopewell Canada Research Chair in Global Policy University of British Columbia
Paul Langley Professor of Economic Geography University of Durham
Erin Lockwood Assistant Professor of Political Science University of California, Irvine
Matthew Paterson Professor of Internatinal Politics University of Manchester
Louis Pauly J. Stefan Distinguished Professor of Political Economy University of Toronto
V. Spike Peterson Professor of International Relations University of Arizona

Elisabeth Prügl
Professor of International Relations Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Leonard Seabrooke Professor of International Political Economy and Economic Sociology Copenhagen Business School
Robbie Shilliam Professor of International Relations Johns Hopkins University
JP Singh Professor of International Commerce and Policy George Mason University
Kevin Young Associate Professor of Political Science University of Massachusetts Amherst