Global Political Economy

Week 5 Readings (Marxism) Connected to Week 2 (Liberalism)

Helleiner's discussion of Marx's critique of political economy (CWE, p. 91) presents a fundamentally different view of labor from the liberal perspective we encountered in Week 2. While Lake (2009, p. 223) describes workers as rational actors who respond to market incentives through factor mobility, Marx argues that labor under capitalism is inherently exploitative because workers are "separated from the means of production" (CWE, p. 94). This creates what Marx calls "surplus value"—the difference between what workers produce and what they're paid.

Lake's Open Economy Politics framework assumes that workers can organize politically to protect their interests through democratic institutions (Lake 2009, p. 230). However, Przeworski complicates this by noting that "the very fact that workers must sell their labor power to survive constrains their political agency" (Przeworski 2020, p. 437). Where liberal theory sees voluntary exchange, Marxist theory sees structural coercion.

Discussion Question: Can liberal democratic institutions adequately address the power asymmetries that Marxist scholars identify, or do these asymmetries fundamentally constrain what democratic politics can achieve in capitalist economies?

Word count: ~185 words

Week 3 Readings (Realism/Mercantilism) Applied to US-China Tech Competition

The Biden administration's October 2022 semiconductor export controls exemplify the realist logic Drezner describes as "the subordination of economic activity to state interests" (Drezner 2010, p. 2). According to the New York Times, these controls prohibit American companies from selling advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China, even when it hurts U.S. firms' profits (Swanson & Ewing, "U.S. Clamps Down on China's Access to Chip Technology," Oct 7, 2022).

This policy directly reflects Hirschman's concept of "influence effects" in trade—the idea that states can leverage economic interdependence for political goals (Hirschman 1945, p. 29). The U.S. is deliberately weaponizing China's dependence on American semiconductor technology to constrain its military capabilities. As Kirshner notes, "economic power is most effective when it creates asymmetric vulnerabilities" (Kirshner 2009, p. 40).

The Financial Times reports that China has responded by investing $143 billion in domestic chip production, attempting to reduce this vulnerability (Yang, "China Chipmakers Defy US Sanctions," Jan 15, 2024). This action-reaction cycle validates the realist prediction that states prioritize security over economic efficiency.

Discussion Question: Does the semiconductor case suggest that globalization is reversing, or are we seeing a shift toward what Farrell and Newman call "weaponized interdependence" where networks become tools of coercion?

Word count: ~215 words

Week 4 Readings (Constructivism) - Interrogating Gemini Pro Output

Prompt to Gemini Pro: "Explain how constructivist approaches differ from rationalist approaches in studying international political economy."

Gemini Pro Response (excerpt): "Constructivists argue that ideas and norms shape economic behavior, while rationalists focus on material interests. For example, constructivists would say the IMF's policies reflect dominant economic ideologies rather than objective technical solutions..."

Critical Interrogation:

Gemini Pro's response oversimplifies the rationalist-constructivist divide. Abdelal clarifies that constructivists don't reject rationality—rather, they argue that "what counts as rational is itself socially constructed" (Abdelal 2009, p. 62). The AI presents this as an either/or between ideas and interests, missing Abdelal's key point that constructivists examine "how actors come to define their interests in the first place" (p. 64).

More problematically, Gemini Pro's IMF example lacks the empirical grounding that Nelson's research provides. Nelson (2014) doesn't just claim the IMF reflects "ideologies"—she demonstrates through quantitative analysis that "shared beliefs between IMF staff and borrower governments" predict lending decisions even when controlling for economic variables (Nelson 2014, p. 300). Gemini Pro's vague reference to "dominant ideologies" misses the mechanism: it's not abstract norms but specific interpersonal belief alignment that matters.

Finally, the AI completely omits gender as a constructed category. Tickner argues that globalization's effects are "deeply gendered" because economic policies rest on unexamined assumptions about unpaid care work, typically performed by women (Tickner 2004, p. 18). This is a significant blind spot in Gemini's overview.

Discussion Question: If AI tools trained on existing scholarship reproduce its blind spots (like gender invisibility), how should we approach using them in academic research?

Word count: ~280 words