Whose voice matters in the teaching and learning of IPE? Implications for policy and policy making

ABSTRACT

Critical decolonial assessments of International Political Economy (IPE) curricula have found a continued dominance of Euro-Western perspectives. However, these critical assessments have often been of specific programs or courses. In this article, we open the canvas wider in our quantitative assessment of privilege and marginalization, by conducting an analysis of IPE curricula from universities from around the world as well as of one of the most widely used introductory textbooks in the field. We find that scholars based outside of the Euro-West are marginal, while those based in the Euro-West continue to be dominant – in all the assessed course offerings. We also find that female voices are marginal, in all locations. Knowledge production systems privilege Euro-Western male voices and perspectives, furthering a process of systemic cognitive and epistemic injustices. Building upon our analysis of teaching and learning content, this article critically reflects on the implications of when IPE meets policy, and offers avenues for the policy engagement to avoid the same processes of privileging and marginalizing, and thereby better situating policy making to avoid repeating failures resulting from the identified entrenched biases.

KEYWORDS:

• International political economy
• policy
• global political economy
• decolonization
• curricula

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Logan Cochrane

Logan Cochrane is an Associate Professor in the College of Public Policy at HBKU. His research includes diverse geographic and disciplinary foci, covering broad thematic areas of food security, climate change, social justice and governance. For the last 15 years, he has worked in non-governmental organizations internationally, including in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Samuel O. Oloruntoba

Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and an  Honorary Professor at the Thabo Mbeki School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa. He is also a Faculty Associate at the African School of Governance and Policy Studies.   He obtained Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was previously a Visiting Scholar at the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, and a Fellow of Brown International Advanced Research Institute, Brown University, Rhode Island, United States of America. Oloruntoba is the author, editor, and co-editor of several books including Regionalism and Integration in Africa: EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements and Euro-Nigeria Relations, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA, 2016 and co-editor with Toyin Falola of the Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, 2020. His research interests are in Political Economy of Development in Africa, Regional Integration, Migration, Democracy and Development, Global Governance of Trade and Finance, Politics of Natural Resources Governance, and EU-African Relations.