Global Political Economy

Topic: Central Bank Monetary Policy Cooperation (not covered in our course—for illustration only)

Question 1:

The Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes in 2022-23 forced central banks worldwide to follow suit or risk currency depreciation. Kirshner argues that "money is politics" and that monetary arrangements reflect power hierarchies rather than neutral efficiency (Kirshner 2003, p. 648). To what extent does the Fed's dominant position in global finance validate the neomercantilist critique that international economic institutions serve the interests of hegemonic powers?

Question 2:

The Bank of Japan's decision to maintain near-zero rates while other central banks tightened policy led to a 30% yen depreciation. Liberal institutionalists would expect this divergence to trigger coordination through forums like the G7 or BIS. Yet no coordinated response emerged. Does this case suggest that Axelrod and Keohane's conditions for "cooperation under anarchy" (1985) break down when domestic political pressures outweigh international reputational costs?

Question 3:

Constructivists like Abdelal emphasize how shared ideas shape economic policy. The "inflation targeting" consensus among central bankers represents a powerful epistemic community. If central bankers share the same economic worldview, why do we still see policy divergence—and what does this tell us about the limits of ideational explanations in IPE?

Topic: Connecting Week 4 (Constructivism) to Week 2 (Liberalism) — for illustration only

Question 1:

In Week 2, Lake argued that "the 'national interest' is not given but must be interpreted by leaders within specific institutional contexts" (Lake 2009, p. 225). This week, Abdelal extends this by claiming that "ideas constitute interests" (Abdelal 2009, p. 62). If both liberal and constructivist scholars agree that interests are not fixed, what distinguishes their explanations of how states come to define their preferences in global economic governance?

Question 2:

Aggarwal and Dupont's discussion of institutional coordination (Week 2) focused on how states overcome collective action problems through repeated interaction. Nelson's analysis of IMF lending decisions (Week 4) suggests that shared professional training among economists creates "in-group" bias favoring countries with similar policy orientations (Nelson 2014, p. 305). Can liberal institutionalism account for the role of epistemic communities, or does this require abandoning rationalist assumptions entirely?

Question 3:

Tickner argues that "mainstream IPE has been largely blind to gender" because it treats market actors as abstract, disembodied agents (Tickner 2004, p. 17). Compare this critique to Lake's "Open Economy Politics" framework, which models trade preferences based on factor endowments and sector-specific interests. Does the OEP approach necessarily exclude gendered analysis, or could feminist insights be incorporated without fundamentally challenging its core assumptions?

Topic: Evaluating AI-generated analysis on trade policy — for illustration only

Prompt Used:

AI Output Excerpt:

Question 1 (Identifying Gaps):

Gemini's response conflates comparative advantage (a classical liberal/economic argument) with liberal institutionalism (an IR theory about cooperation). Milner distinguishes between "economic" rationales for trade and "political economy" explanations that focus on institutions and domestic coalitions (Milner 1999, p. 93). Why might AI models struggle to maintain these disciplinary distinctions, and what does this reveal about the limits of using AI for theoretical analysis in IPE?

Question 2 (Detecting Bias):

The AI framed the "argument against free trade" primarily in terms of domestic job losses—a concern Rodrik addresses (Rodrik 2012, Ch. 3). However, it omitted critiques from dependency theory, environmental perspectives, or feminist IPE. Does this omission reflect a bias in AI training data toward mainstream Western economic discourse, and how should students account for such biases when using AI as a research tool?

Question 3 (Verification Note):

I verified the AI's claim about WTO dispute resolution by cross-referencing with Aggarwal and Dupont's discussion of "nested institutions" (Week 2). The AI correctly identified the WTO's role but oversimplified by not mentioning how power asymmetries affect which states can effectively use dispute mechanisms. When AI provides technically accurate but incomplete information, how should scholars balance efficiency gains against the risk of superficial analysis?