ABSTRACT
International political economy involves technology a great deal, and in many ways. Discussions of the relative power of leading multinational companies often hinge on their ability to use technologies to compete; discussions of the dangers of their activities often hinge on the threats their products and practices present. Technology also provides a vital resource for governments, but a focus on state-to-state relations is likely to simplify and underestimate the importance of technology as a factor in both international relations and the world economy. Much debate on environmental policy, and nearly all discussion of energy security, engage with questions of the merits (and problems) of present and future technologies. The same is true of food security and information security. Production technologies, communication technologies, technologies of surveillance and the self, technologies that can destroy the planet and those that can save humankind: the list of potential issues is very long. It touches on nearly every aspect of IPE, including ‘classic’ questions about states and markets and inequality, and emerging questions about the changing world order and the growing power of new actors – rms, networks and social movements – in world politics. But IPE, although it discusses all of this, does not always theorise these issues very well. It does not always have a very clear idea of how to conceptualise technology or technology change. And it fails quite often to think critically about them. With the exception
| of only a few studies (e.g. Skolniko, 1994; Stoneman, 1988’; Pavitt, 1999) technology as a set of structures and processes that shape IPE has tended to be underestimated as a key factor in understanding the eld.
