ABSTRACT
International political economy (IPE) as a discipline and field of inquiry has long been marked out by a set of analytical and methodological concerns that resonate with this current conjuncture. Historical contingencies of empire, statehood, property, language, human rights, gender rights, and more all underline the fact that the global economy is itself a political construct, situated within power relations that produce and constrain agency. IPE can provide a critical perspective on the ethics of a global economy. While the substantive focus of IPE can offer important insights on the ethics of the global economy, the academic discipline has tended to treat ethics as a separate issue, suitable for discussion only once the hard-nosed politics of globalisation have been addressed and understood. Ethics is a part of the performative politics of market life whereby frameworks of knowing 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'bad', are intrinsic to the legitimation of particular settlements.
