ABSTRACT
This chapter provides suggestions of international political economy (IPE) approaches that could be relevant for critical studies of transnational commodity markets: a problematization from a sustainability perspective; inspired by Polanyi, a critical study of the three factors of production - land, labor and money; Marxist approaches to IPE; analyses of Global Commodity Chains, Global Value Chains and Global Production Networks; neo-Gramscian approaches to IPE; and Laclau and Mouffe's post-foundational discourse theory. It reviews studies of certification markets, and studies of multistakeholder initiatives which draw on neo-Gramscian IPE to problematize how standards are designed to protect the interests of big industry actors. The chapter discusses the case of the global palm oil market through the approaches to IPE as an illustration of what an IPE perspective on transnational markets can bring. It finally suggests from what angles the critical marketing studies drawing on IPE approaches may relate to various contemporary marketing topics.
