Summary of Conceptual Approaches to IPE

Summary of Conceptual Approaches to IPE

Concept	Mercantilist/Realist	Liberal/Neoliberal	Marxist
Basic Value	Maximum growth in national economy	Maximum growth in national and global economy	Progression toward a classless society; end of exploitation
Distribution of Benefits	Zero-sum: favoring powerful	Positive sum	Zero-sum: favoring wealthy
Amount of Inherent Conflict in System	Large amount due to competition	Minimal as states see value of cooperation	Very large - recurrent crises. Dialectic nature of system
Persistent Cleavages	National conflict is foundation of system, thus cleavages exist if more than one state exists.	None	Rich vs. Poor
Obstacle to National Goals	Not enough nat'l power relative to others	Irrational state policies	Capitalist dominance of domestic and global economies
Attitude Toward IOs	Irrelevant or IOs as nat'l tools	Facilitators of cooperation. Can establish and oversee rules and norms in system	Provision of infrastructure for rich to oppress the poor
Main Characteristics of Economic Order	Competition and pursuit of nat'l interest and power	Sovereign and autonomous states with wide decision latitude. States involved in positive sum collaboration.	Hierarchical - hierarchy of classes primary, but also dominant and dependent states.
Preferred Means of Resource Allocation	Gov't control through values market if works to state advantage in system	Free market	State admin until capitalism completely dies, then socially equitable classless distribution w/o state.
Relationship of Economics and Politics	Politics drives economics	Should be separated as much as possible	Economics determines politics

Source: Adapted from Blake, David H. and Walters, Robert S. (1987) The Politics of Global Economic Relations, 3rd. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Adaptations and additions to this matrix were made by Mark A. Boyer and Robert A. Denemark.