Whatever Happened to the Semi-Periphery?

Abstract

International Political Economy (IPE) has in recent years seen an influx of critical writing on the theme of globalisation and world order which has radicalised the way that power has been conceived within the global political economy. The much heralded work of Susan Strange, followed by interventions from Robert Cox and the birth of ‘new international political economy’ opened up new ways of understanding the emergence of the globalised economy and non-state and institutional actors (Strange, 1987; Murphy and Tooze, 1991; Cox, 1996). This body of work, some of which — but by no means all — have been influenced by Marxist literature, has often been presented as one that transcended former Marxist-inspired interpretations of power that had generally been expressed through the relationship of core-periphery. The central concepts of core-periphery favoured by world-system and dependency theorists were criticised for undermining the complexities of structural power in their reproduction of international capitalism and equally for being unable to account for transformation and change (Strange, 1987: 24–29; Linklater, 1990: 97–139; Cox, 1996: 510–513). These criticisms (which themselves often appraised as much as criticised the work¹) have led to a body of ‘critique’ that seems to be quick to dismiss much of the language inherent within world-systems.