Global Political Economy (GPE) is one of the most vibrant, and growing, areas of contemporary IR. GPE brings the study of economic processes into International Relations, but also draws on scholarship in sociology, human geography, social psychology and other socials sciences. GPE is a multidisciplinary approach to problems of world order and change.
Over the years, Sussex has built an international reputation as a leading centre of research and study in GPE. It boasts a community of GPE specialists of renown in the history and theory of international political economy, problems of global finance, transnational socio-economic relations, and the environment.
In recognition of the reputation of the Department in this area, the University in 2001 established the Centre of Global Political Economy (CGPE), an inter-disciplinary, research-orientated community of students and scholars of contemporary political-economic transformations. The current Director of the Centre is Prof Peter Newell. Apart from members from the Department of IR, CGPE includes members from Human Geography, IDS, and Anthropology.
The CGPE runs bi-annual international conferences and organises at least one day-long workshop per term. Since 2003, in cooperation with Palgrave/Macmillan, the CGPE has been entrusted with editing a book series on contemporary issues of global political economy. One of the leading academic journals in the field, the Review of International Political Economy, (RIPE), was edited from Sussex for almost a decade before it moved to Johns Hopkins in the United States. Several of our faculty remain closely connected to the journal and have contributed to the RIPE book series published by Routledge and to the Encyclopaedia of International Political Economy that also came out of the RIPE venture.
Staff members of the GPE group include Dr Jan Selby, Dr Kevin Gray, Dr Andreas Antoniades, Dr Samuel Knafo, Dr. Ben Selwyn, Prof. Peter Newell, Dr. Earl Gammon and Dr. Anne Roemer-Mahler. The group also includes many doctoral students and research fellows associated with the CGPE centre.
Jan Selby's research focuses on peace processes; environmental security; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and International Relations theory. On peace processes, Jan's research advances a critical political economy- and geopolitics-informed account of contemporary peace processes and post-conflict peace-building. This research considers a large number of peace processes, but centres principally on the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Egyptian, Northern Ireland, India-Pakistan, Cypriot and Sudanese cases. An early stage of this research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). On environmental security, Jan's research focuses especially on international water and climate politics. Jan is author is author of a monograph and various journal articles on Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern water politics. Until very recently he was Principal Investigator on the EU Framework 7-funded project Climate Change, Hydro-Conflicts and Human Security (CLICO), undertaking research (together with Sussex colleague Clemens Hoffmann) on water-climate-conflict linkages in Cyprus, Israel-Palestine and Sudan. Together with Clemens, Jan recently convened a major international conference, Rethinking Climate Change, Conflict and Security, papers from which are forthcoming in the journal Geopolitics. Jan and Clemens are also currently working on a manuscript on water-climate-conflict issues, forthcoming with IB Tauris. Jan has served widely as a consultant and advisor on water policy issues. While Jan has conducted field research in a number of countries, his main area focus is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is reflected in his work on both peace processes and environmental security. Beyond these main areas of research, Jan maintains a strong interest in International Relations theory. He has published on contemporary global governance; on the use and misuse of the work of Michel Foucault in IR; on the work of Edward Said; and, together with Sussex colleague Anna Stavrianakis, on militarism and International Relations (their co-edited volume was published with Routledge in 2012). Jan currently supervises 8 PhD students, and is interested in taking on new projects on peace processes; environmental security; and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Samuel Knafo joined the Department in 2004 coming from York University, Canada, where he took his Ph.D. He has developed an innovative thesis about the role of 19th century liberal governance in the emergence of modern finance and has worked extensively on the gold standard and the rise of central banking. He is the author of the Making of Modern Finance published by Routledge (2013). His current work focuses on financialisation and the central role of investment banks in the new economy. In addition, Knafo takes an active interest in theoretical and methodological debates in global political economy. He has written various articles which seek to define the contours of a new historicist approach based on the idea of agency.
Kevin Gray joined the Department in 2006 as an RCUK postdoctoral fellow. He is author of Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalisation (London: Routledge, 2008), as well as of a number of scholarly articles on the international political economy of East Asia. His current research involves an examination of the g the relationship between the rise of East Asian labour as a social force and the transformation of the East Asian regional political economy. He is also the Principle Investigator for a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust titled "Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance." In addition, Gray is also co-editor of Routledge's Rethinking Globalization book series and assistant editor for the journal Globalizations.
Andreas Antoniades joined the Department in 2007, having previously taught at the London School of Economics and the University of Essex. He is the Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy. His research focuses on the nature of the interplay between power and life within the international. His forthcoming monograph, Producing Globalisation: the Politics of Discourse and Institutions in Greece and Ireland (MUP, 2008), brings together comparative institutionalism and discourse theory to develop an understanding of globalisation as a hegemonic discourse and to analyse how domestic institutions and everyday life relate to the production, reproduction and change of global orders. His current research focuses on three areas: the theory and practice of hegemony in world politics and economics; the discourses of 'globalisation' and 'Global Europe' and their policy implications; the nature of agency in social repetition; the current economic crisis; the changing European political economy; the European debt crisis and the emerging European economic architecture; the IMF programmes in the Eurozone; the changing place of the EU in the global economy; EU strategic narratives; Greek and Irish political economy.
Ben Selwyn joined the department in 2009 after teaching at the University of Southampton and the London School of Economics. He has conducted research in North East Brazil about the impacts of the global retail revolution on regional development. He is currently writing about theories of development and the potential for a global non neo-liberal development strategy. He teaches undergraduate courses on the political economy of Latin American Development, regions and institutions in the international system, and international political economy, and a Masters course on the political economy of development. His publications include 'Labour Process and Workers' Bargaining Power in Export Grape Production, North East Brazil' in Journal of Agrarian Change (2007), 'Institutions, Upgrading And Development: Evidence From North East Brazilian Export Horticulture' in Competition and Change (2008), 'Gender, Wage Work And Development In North East Brazilian Export Horticulture' in Bulletin of Latin American Research (2009), and 'A Critical Appraisal of Friedrich List and His Modern Day Followers' in New Political Economy' (2009).
Peter Newell has worked on issues of environment and development, especially climate change, for over 18 years and conducted research and policy work for the governments of the UK, Sweden and Finland as well as international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Global Environment Facility and the Inter-American Development Bank. He has been called upon to give presentations and evidence to the UK parliament on a number of occasions and to provide training to commonwealth parliamentarians. He also worked extensively with and for NGOs including Friends of the Earth, Climate Network Europe, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Practical Action, Transparency International, Care and the International Council on Human Rights Policy. He is a trustee of the One World Trust and chairs the group’s Independent Advisory Panel. In addition, he was worked closely with a range of businesses on issues of climate change and Corporate Social Responsibility both as lobbyist and provider of training and advisory services.
Earl Gammon joined the Department of International Relations in 2012, having previously taught at the Universities of East Anglia and Oxford Brookes. Drawing on psychoanalysis and recent developments in neuroscience, his research examines how affect, specifically anxiety and aggression, shapes political economic behaviour. In this vein, he has theorised the role of anxiety and aggression in the rise and consolidation of nineteenth century market civilization and the embodiment of modern political-economic subjectivity in the form of homo economicus. Also drawing on this affects-based approach, his work has examined contemporary issues including the neoliberal ascendancy, climate change denial and the violence of contemporary financial practice. He also has a continuing interest in post-structuralist approaches to Global Political Economy and IR, having guest co-edited a special issue on Deleuze and Guattari with Julian Reid in the Journal of International Relations and Development.
Anne Roemer-Mahler joined the Department in January 2013. She took her PhD from the Department of International Development at Oxford University, where she began her research into the role of pharmaceutical companies in shaping the global regime for the protection of intellectual property rights. In particular, Anne is interested in how pharmaceutical companies from emerging markets engage with world politics. Before coming to Sussex, Anne worked as post-doctoral research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she designed a Masters course on the Politics of Global Health Policy. At Sussex she works with Stefan Elbe on an ERC-funded research project, which investigates collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and governments to strengthen health security. She is also designing a BA course on Business in World Politics. Anne has published in a range of journals including the Review of International Political Economy and Business and Politics.