Making The International : Economic Interdependence and Political Order

Making sense of today's international economic and political system is one of the most challenging tasks facing scholars, citizens and decision makers. Making the International is an innovative introductory text that enables the reader to develop a confident grasp of political and economic analysis. Focusing on core skills and concepts, the book analyses key ideas in an integrated and cumulative way -- an approach that will enable the reader to formulate their own critical standpoint about how the international system is made and in whose name it operates. Making the International is genuinely international in its coverage -- contributors from India, Mexico and Africa offer their perspectives alongside others from the USA and the European Union. The book is divided into five main sections: Trade and states compares the WTO's argument for the free market with the realities of developed and developing countries’ experience. Making state policy looks at how states manoeuvre within the constraints of the international trading system and at the resulting policies of industrialization, national development and liberalization. Inequality and power investigates the impact of policies of liberalized trade and investment, and the patterns of inequality within developing countries. Autonomy, sovereignty and macroeconomic policy examines the ability of states to pursue national policies of macroeconomic management in a highly internationalized political economy. International collective action uses prominent examples of the successes and failures of states to achieve collective action – especially related to global climate change – and how collective action could be developed in the future.

Dr Simon Bromley is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at The Open University. Dr William Brown is Lecturer in Government and Politics at The Open University. Professor Maureen Mackintosh is Professor of Economics at The Open University. Professor Marc Wuyts is Professor in Quantitative Applied Economics at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.