ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the influences that Latin America offered to the field of International Political Economy (IPE). Based on historical analysis, it studies to what extent theories of development contributed to the consolidation of the regional IPE field. It also addresses how the subfield of Regionalism has developed during the last decades by contrasting the role of dependency school and related critical approaches, considered as area studies rather than regional contributions to IPE. Through the study of the most relevant contributions in the field of Political Economy of Development and IPE, it brings into analysis the epistemological and ontological roots of Latin American IPE, contrasting the contributions made by the Prebisch–Singer thesis, the theories of development and its dependency claims and the more recent discussions on Regionalism. It argues that the intellectual development of Latin American IPE debates has been closely linked to the endogenous social and economic realities, as well as its relationship with exogenous factors which were regionally discussed before the “formalization” of the IPE in the 1970s. Finally, we problematize the labeling of a Latin American School of International Political Economy as it poses a risk to peripheralize regional discussions; instead, it suggests to analyze regional contributions under the debate of Global Political Economy.
