The field of International Political Economy (IPE) has rapidly developed into a central pillar in the study of International Relations, and its interdisciplinary roots make it a rich and productive area of scholarly interest. This Oxford Handbook analyses and evaluates the state of the art in IPE research.

Bringing together leading experts from a wide geographical and theoretical spectrum, the Handbook provides accessible and comprehensive surveys on topics central to the study of International Political Economy. As IPE scholarship evolves to explore global events such as financial crises and trade wars, examining how politics is both a cause and a consequence of economics, it highlights the practical and problem-driven nature of the field. The Handbook considers the purported European-North American divide and the impact of the surrounding debate on the approach taken to the field. The chapters review the scholarly literature, outline future research opportunities, and consider the ways in which world events have contributed to new research in the field.

The Handbook covers both the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field as well as substantive topics within it, including regulation, foreign aid, migration, NGOs, capital, political–military relations, and many others.


The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations.

The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smit of the University of Melbourne and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by specialists in the field. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of Reus-Smit and Snidal's original Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by scholars drawn from different perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.