ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the separation between international and comparative political economy has been an artificial one. Firstly, as far as the focus of analysis is concerned, because of the increasing role played by non-state authorities; secondly, with regard to the method of analysis, because of an overriding concern with the distribution of values in society. For the same reasons, an explicit synthesis–or handshake–between the two remains doubtful. It would be more fruitful to investigate potential organizational alter natives in existing polities. As Susan Strange's work offers an alternative theory of power, she can ignore neither the role of the state nor that of institutions. Consequently, her definition of international political economy leaves a significant role for institutions when analyzing social, political and economic arrangements affecting the global systems of production, exchange and distribution. Strange herself was too much a pragmatist to give up the comparative dimension in political economy completely.
