Evolving Perspective on International Political Economy: TwentiethCentury Contexts and Discontinuities

ABSTRACT. Twentieth-century theoretical debates about the international political economy are situated in their intertextual and social contexts in an effort to illustrate how theoretical debates have evolved and where they might be going. Classic imperialism debates from the beginning of the century are considered, followed by an analysis of the competing political economic orders of the interwar years, the construction of the liberal world economic order after 1945, and radical critiques of the dominant interna-tional economic order. Reflections on current and future theoretical direc-tions conclude the article, based on an analysis of principal anomalies and omissions of existing theoretical approaches, including the erosion of state authority, expansion of transnational linkages, the breakdown of tradi-tional categories (North and South, East and West), the continued decline of American economic hegemony, and the tension between the "triumph" of liberal capitalism throughout the world and the prospects of global environmental degradation