International Political Economy [IPE]/Global Political Economy [GPE].
IPE is an academic discipline within political science that analysis economics and international relations.
International Political Economy (IPE) is the rapidly developing social science that attempts to understand international and global problems using interdisciplinary analytical tools and theoretical perspectives.
IPE is a field that thrives on the process that Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.” The growing prominence of IPE as a field of study is in part a result of the continuing breakdown of disciplinary boundaries between economics and politics in particular and among the social sciences generally.
Increasingly, the most pressing and interesting problems are those that can best be understood from a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary point of view.
if there is an “IPE Project” its objective is to pull down the fences that restrict intellectual inquiry in the social sciences so that important questions and problems can be examined without reference to disciplinary borders.
As an interdisciplinary subject, International Political Economy draws on many distinct academic schools, most notably political economy, political science, economics, sociology, history and cultural studies etc.
Although it originally developed as a sub-field of International Relations, it has in recent years taken on a life if its own. At the University of Puget Sound, 30 to 40 students graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in IPE each year.
The growing prominence of IPE is one result of the continuing breakdown of boundaries between economics, politics, and other social science disciplines. Increasingly, the most pressing problems that scholars and policy-makers confront are those that can best be understood from a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary point of view. IPE pulls down the fences that restrict intellectual inquiry in the social sciences so that important questions and problems can be examined without reference to disciplinary borders.