ABSTRACT
It is now a commonplace that the meaning, constitution, and effects of borders – conceptual and territorial – are being radically transformed by globalization dynamics. To address the challenges posed by the speed, scale, and complexity of these changes, we require new theories of international political economy or, more appropriately, global political economy (GPE). This chapter takes as a starting point that the disciplines of economics and IR that produce the prevailing accounts of GPE remain dominated by productivist, masculinist, and modernist commitments that are analytically inadequate and politically problematic. In particular, prevailing accounts neglect significant aspects of globalization (increasing informal sector activities, feminization of flexibilization, crises of welfare delivery, diasporic identities and migration flows, shifting sexual politics and family forms) and pay little attention to how these are shaped by geopolitics, gender, and race/ethnicity. Moreover, political economists are just beginning to analyze the singular importance of financial (as distinct from monetary) institutions on a global scale, and only a few are epistemologically prepared for (or interested in) grappling with a virtual economy of signs rather than goods.
