The Welcome Return of Political Economy to International Political Economy Scholarship States, Markets, and Governance

This chapter argues that methodological pluralism and innovation, combined with new data sources and research technologies, have steadily eroded the divisions observed in the “Cohen debate” on the UK versus US schools of (International) Political Economy. A problem-solving approach that nonetheless addresses big questions of global and normative importance has reduced the influence of “gatekeeper” approaches such as critical theory or Open Economy Politics, integrating many of their insights on the way. Understanding the observable variation in state-market-governance relationships remains central to the contemporary field: a focus on the interface between what people do as they go about their material life, and the many collective forms of governance and organization, private or public, formal or informal, local or cross-border, that emerge as a result.