Page 31 - Global Political Economy_Understanding The International Economic Order

CHA PTER O NE
and international organizations, a more comprehensive definition
than in my 1987 book, The Political Economy of International Rela-
tions, although both take a state-centric approach to the subject. 15
While I do assume that the territorial state continues to be the pri-
mary actor in both domestic and international economic affairs, I do
not contend that the state is the only important actor. Other signifi-
cant players include the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and the Commission of the European Union. Despite the
importance of these other actors, however, I emphasize that national
governments still make the primary decisions regarding economic
matters; they continue to set the rules within which other actors func-
tion, and they use their considerable power to influence economic
outcomes. The major political players, namely Germany, France, and
the United Kingdom, are central in even such a highly integrated in-
ternational institution as the European Union. Whatever the ultimate
shape of the European Union, national governments will continue to
be important actors within this regional arrangement.
My interpretation of international political economy assumes that
the interests and policies of states are determined by the governing
political elite, the pressures of powerful groups within a national soci-
ety, and the nature of the “national system of political economy.” As
I argued in War and Change in World Politics (1981), the economic/
foreign policies of a society reflect the nation’s national interest as
16
defined by the dominant elite of that society. As conceptualists cor-
rectly argue, there is a subjective element in an elite’s definition of the
national interest. However, objective factors such as the geographic
location of a society and the physical requirements of the economy
are of great importance in determining the national interest. Only
objective factors, for example, can explain why Great Britain’s fore-
most national interest for approximately four hundred years was to
prevent the occupation of the lowlands (Belgium and the Nether-
lands) by a hostile power. Clearly, British behavior and the numerous
wars England fought to keep these lands out of unfriendly hands sug-
gest that the English nation under many different rulers and political
regimes possessed interests that transcended the more narrowly de-
fined interests of the governing elite of the moment.
My state-centric position assumes that national security is and al-
ways will be the principal concern of states. In a “self-help” interna-
15
Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987).
16
Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1981), 18–19.
18