SPERI hosted the workshop in collaboration with the editorial boards of the leading journals, Review of International Political Economy (RIPE) and New Political Economy (NPE). The workshop has led to a double special issue of RIPE and NPE on ‘Blind spots in International Political Economy’.
Today, the first special issue has been published in RIPE, and the NPE Special Issue will follow later in the autumn. Both Special Issues are co-edited by the organisers of the ‘blindspots’ initiative: Professor Genevieve LeBaron (SPERI, University of Sheffield), Professor Colin Hay (SPERI, University of Sheffield), Professor Jacqueline Best (University of Ottawa) and Professor Daniel Mügge (University of Amsterdam).
The RIPE special issue is entitled, Blind spots in IPE: Marginalized perspectives and neglected trends in contemporary capitalism, and the abstract is below.
Which blind spots shape scholarship in International Political Economy (IPE)? That question animates the contributions to a double special issue—one in the Review of International Political Economy, and a companion one in New Political Economy.
The global financial crisis had seemed to vindicate broad-ranging IPE perspectives at the expense of narrow economics theories. Yet the tumultuous decade since then has confronted IPE scholars with rapidly-shifting global dynamics, many of which had remained underappreciated. We use the Blind Spots moniker in an attempt to push the topics covered here higher up the scholarly agenda—issues that range from institutionalized racism and misogyny to the rise of big tech, intensifying corporate power, expertise-dynamics in global governance, assetization, and climate change.
Gendered and racial inequalities as blind spots have a particular charge. There has been a self-reinforcing correspondence between topics that have counted as important, people to whom they matter personally, and the latter’s ability to build careers on them. In that sense, our mission is not only to highlight collective blind spots that may dull IPE’s capacity to theorize the current moment. It is also a normative one—a form of disciplinary housekeeping to help correct both intellectual and professional entrenched biases.
All of the articles in the RIPE special issue can be read here. Initially, all articles in both special issues will be available open-access.
The forthcoming NPE special issue will be entitled, Seeing and not-seeing like a political economist: the historicity of contemporary political economy and its blind spots.
The full list of contributors for both special issues is below.
| Special issue editors | Title | Institution |
| Jacqueline Best | Professor of Political Science | University of Ottawa |
| Colin Hay | Professor of Political Analysis | University of Sheffield |
| Genevieve LeBaron | Professor of Politics | University of Sheffield |
| Daniel Mügge | Professor of Political Arithmetic | University of Amsterdam |
| Special issue contributors | Title | Institution |
| Maha Rafi Atal | Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Copenhagen Business School |
| Kate Bedford | Professor of Law | University of Birmingham |
| Gurminder K. Bhambra | Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies | University of Sussex |
| André Broome | Associate Professor of International Political Economy | University of Warwick |
| Andrew Gamble | Professor of Politics | University of Sheffield |
| Marieke de Goede | Professor of Politics | University of Amsterdam |
| Eric Helleiner | Professor in Political Science | University of Waterloo |
| Kristen Hopewell | Canada Research Chair in Global Policy | University of British Columbia |
| Paul Langley | Professor of Economic Geography | University of Durham |
| Erin Lockwood | Assistant Professor of Political Science | University of California, Irvine |
| Matthew Paterson | Professor of Internatinal Politics | University of Manchester |
| Louis Pauly | J. Stefan Distinguished Professor of Political Economy | University of Toronto |
| V. Spike Peterson | Professor of International Relations | University of Arizona |
Elisabeth Prügl |
Professor of International Relations | Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva |
| Leonard Seabrooke | Professor of International Political Economy and Economic Sociology | Copenhagen Business School |
| Robbie Shilliam | Professor of International Relations | Johns Hopkins University |
| JP Singh | Professor of International Commerce and Policy | George Mason University |
| Kevin Young | Associate Professor of Political Science | University of Massachusetts Amherst |