THE POLITICAL ECONOMY APPROACH OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Pioneered by Gardner, strange,  spiro, brown, Kindleberger,  Gunder frank and Claude  Ake, the  approach emphasized the interaction of economic and  political forces. Political economy studies economic relations which arise between man in the process of production, the nature of political powers, the class content of the state, the influence of state policy on the  economy,  and the mutual influence of various  socio-economic systems existing in the modern  world. The rapidity with which this approach has gained acceptance in political science and international relations in particular was

  partly its antithesis posture to the modernization thesis.  While modernization posits that interaction between  the centre nations and the periphery will improve the periphery’s position globally the peripheries have come to witness under  development. In deed, these scholars have taken  seriously a political dimension to study  of external economic relations of nations. In Maxist standing point, the interaction between economics and politics does not sink down to the establishment of the definitive function of the former with respect to the latter.

Also,  it involves  recognition of the active feedback effect of politics on economic development the approach seek to overcome the problems associated with the extreme politics  without  economics approach of  the realist  school and at the same time rescue the field  of international economic relations from the   excessive econometric and mathematical treatment to which it had  been subjected by  neo-classical economists. In this framework, there is increasing significance of the underdevelopment /dependency approach. This approach views the economics foundation of society a necessary pre-requeiste for   a proper understanding of social policies and development mainly in the developing countries. These scholars argued, contrary to what modernization theorists claims that the increased participation of developing countries in the world economy would break their economies by expanding the  gap between the rich and the poor on the international as well as the national level. By implication, economic dependence and resource transfer would distort the development process in the developing countries, thus resulting to socio-economic conditions , which André  Gunder Frank regarded as the  “development  of under development’. So, new economics have to pave way for external aid and foreign investment. The set back of this new development is neo-colonialism through which western capitalists have been able to assume indirect influence on the African states and enhance continued relations of imperialist exploitation of the peripheral states.

The expectation in international political is that there must be independent decision not considered in the light of external factors which would inhabit the making of the decision, be it, economic, political or cultural. In the absence of such independence, the sovereign state so affected can not be regarded as enjoying ‘real” independence. The ‘dependency theory’ conceptualizes the inhibition which sovereign states experience in taking decisions on international issues.  The dependency theory seeks to explain how economically weaker nations by the stronger ones, are tied down as a result of the economic,  cultural and ideological bankruptcy  theory are seen in the light of economic dependence through the grant of economic aids, cultural  servitude in the form of cultural pollution the weaker nations by the stronger ones   using the weapons of religion and education. Dependency could manifest through political subservience as in the case of political groupings borne out of political ties.  Given the background of the dependency theory, international decision-making process which embraces perception, choice and expectation will be  considered against the influence of the agreements which constrains  a  sovereign state faced with a decision.

The dependency theory should not be seen one –sidedly as a result of the weaker nation in relation to the strong nation. There is inter-dependence among nations in the industrial world today on what Karl Deutsch called “symmetrical inter- dependence” with changes in one creating changes in another. Dependency theory can therefore  be referred to as two-way affair, each sovereign state whether industrialized or less –developed is not left in isolation and  world not be unmindful of the diverse  or positive consequences of its international policy.  Dependency when perceived in form of resource flow, in the aspect of who gives and who receives in the form of aids,  usually with strings, the concept becomes determined.