An Australian international political economy? The high road and the low road

Abstract

Drawing on Karl Polanyi's distinction between formal and substantive theory, this article argues that ‘an Australian international political economy’ could (and should) be erected on the historical study of Australia's substantive articulations with the global economy.

Notes

1. The interesting exception to this Australian rule was Owen Harries, foreign policy advisor to Malcolm Fraser. For the so-called Harries Report, see the Committee on Australia's Relations with the Third World (1979).

2. For reportage of Rumsfeld's meditations on the epistemology of intelligence analysis, see Shanker (2002).

3. For one of his many durable statements of the argument, see Polanyi (1957).

4. For some discussion at different points in time of possible term of trade declines, see Shann (2009) and Stutchbury (2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Leaver

Richard Leaver is Reader in the Department of International Relations at Flinders University, where he teaches and researches on the economic aspects of international relations, the international politics of oil, and nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation