Hegemony and Power – International Political Economy Perspective

The aim of the proposed section is to address the concepts of hegemony and power in international relations from the International Political Economy (IPE) perspective. The topic is important both from the empirical and theoretical perspective. The last decades were marked by significant shifts in the balance of power and hegemonic order in global economy. These resulted from several challenges to the global economic order, including trade liberalisation, rising income inequalities and uneven development, emergence of new economic powers (and thus redefinition of North–South relations), or insufficient regulation of global finance resulting in resurgent financial crises. As the reconstruction of global economic order and power relations within it remains a work in progress, a question of the future of global economic order requires addressing as well. Moreover, there is still space for further conceptualization of economic dimensions of both hegemony and power (e.g. defining economic powers or financial hegemony). Given the above, the section attempts at discussing shifts in hegemonic order and balance of power in global economy and factors affecting them. Further it will look into possible scenarios for the future global economic order at global and regional level. By doing so it will provide a contribution towards a better understanding of economic hegemony and power. For the purposes of the section the concept of hegemony follows a framework provided by Richard Saull (2010) who indicates that idea of hegemony as leadership in global economy can be derived both from the concept of hegemonic order as presented in the Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-systems approach as well as Charles P. Kindleberger’s approach towards hegemonic stability theory. Similarly, the concept of power can be drawn from Susan Strange (1988) concept of structural power in the International Political Economy. As such four dimensions of this power responding to four specific power structures should be analysed: security, production, finance, and knowledge. The section seeks towards a multi-disciplinary approach to the analysis of economic hegemony and power. Possible topics to be discussed within panels in this section might include: concept of economic hegemonic order, evolution of global economic order, power shifts in global economy, monetary hegemony and power, international financial architecture, power shifts and new blocs in global trade, new and old economic powers, as well topics from the broad area of the IPE problematique.