ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relationship between academic research and engagement with policy and political practices, especially from the perspective of the global South. It is based on the author’s recollections of his work in international economic law over the past half-century, starting with a formative experience in African post-colonial rapid social and political change. It reflects on the interaction of theory and practice to emphasise the need to maintain academic independence and a research perspective based on reflexive methodology (situating actors and identifying their positions in the field) and immanent critique (close analysis of the self-understandings of practitioners and detailed examination of their practices). It emphasises the need for critical engagement by scholars of international economic law with the characteristics of global governance currently dominated by corporatist public–private structures controlled by small elites. and the importance of confronting the relationship been specialist expertise often characterised and ‘technocratic’ and political rhetoric and practice.
