By normal academic standards, international political economy (IPE) is a very young field of study. It emerged in the 1970s out of dissatisfaction with what Susan Strange, a pioneering IPE scholar, referred to as a ‘dialogue of the deaf’ between economists and political scientists.

By contrast, IPE has consciously sought to theorize the interpenetrated nature of politics and economics in international affairs. Its importance to political science has since increased as it provides a ‘one-stop shop’ for the analysis of globalization and interdependence between nation-states.

But what is political economy, as distinct from either the fields of politics or economics? And what features of the world economy make an ‘international’ political economy distinct?