Chapter 13 - International
Political Economy
Key concepts: Commodification, commodity fetishism, everyday life, exchange rates,
foreign currency, gross domestic product, hierarchies of difference, inflation,
international political economy, market, microfinance
What is international political economy
IPE is the study of power and wealth across countries.
The Everyday Turn in IPE
Through the analysis of everyday life, you can give route to international politics
and IPE.
The study of the everyday has educational potential, a lot of new progress can
be made by teaching this way.
Lineages of Everyday IPE
Marx was an influential user of international political science, in the everyday
form. He saw that there was a commodity fetishism going on. Meaning that
relations are being formed between commodities instead of people. → global
commodity chain
This can be normalised according to Antonio Gramsci by common sense.
Common sense referred to the everyday reality of popular opinion. It is a
collective, if contradictory set of ideas which counters emotional force.
Everyday IPE seeks to illuminate the ideological battleground on which class
relations are pleyed out, showing how people can made conform but also
test the status quo.
The term ‘everyday life’ is associated with Henri Lefebvre who
conceptualized it as how daily activities are subordinated to the imperatives
of capitalism and made routine and ordinary.
Another lineage of everyday IPE can be found in feminism → what to do with
the household and the daily work associated with it? → ‘Social reproduction’
referred to the effort required to raise and look after people. → the feminists
Chapter 13 - International Political Economy 1
Political Economy
Key concepts: Commodification, commodity fetishism, everyday life, exchange rates,
foreign currency, gross domestic product, hierarchies of difference, inflation,
international political economy, market, microfinance
What is international political economy
IPE is the study of power and wealth across countries.
The Everyday Turn in IPE
Through the analysis of everyday life, you can give route to international politics
and IPE.
The study of the everyday has educational potential, a lot of new progress can
be made by teaching this way.
Lineages of Everyday IPE
Marx was an influential user of international political science, in the everyday
form. He saw that there was a commodity fetishism going on. Meaning that
relations are being formed between commodities instead of people. → global
commodity chain
This can be normalised according to Antonio Gramsci by common sense.
Common sense referred to the everyday reality of popular opinion. It is a
collective, if contradictory set of ideas which counters emotional force.
Everyday IPE seeks to illuminate the ideological battleground on which class
relations are pleyed out, showing how people can made conform but also
test the status quo.
The term ‘everyday life’ is associated with Henri Lefebvre who
conceptualized it as how daily activities are subordinated to the imperatives
of capitalism and made routine and ordinary.
Another lineage of everyday IPE can be found in feminism → what to do with
the household and the daily work associated with it? → ‘Social reproduction’
referred to the effort required to raise and look after people. → the feminists
Chapter 13 - International Political Economy 1
