RIP IPE

The paper reviews the origins of critical IPE, arguing that the contrast it introduced between problem-solving and critical theory was flawed. Critical IPE has since been drawn into a subordinate relationship to hegemonic 'American' IPE, and failed to realise the potential of the research agenda set out by Cox in 1981. On the basis of the analysis of Nicola Phillips, Globalizing International Political Economy (2005) and Tony Payne, The Global Politics of Unequal Development (2005), and a brief discussion of their relationship with mainstream IPE, it is argued that both mainstream and critical IPE are so deeply flawed that they should be abandoned