Extending the Research Agenda

Abstract

Most studies of the geography of international trade provide little more than descriptions of the pattern of commodity movements at the international scale, albeit with increasing technical sophistication. For their theoretical base, they draw on the theory of comparative advantage, to which they add the “geographical concepts” of frictions of distance and preferred trading partners. This largely a historical approach takes no account of how comparative advantages are created as part of the process of combined and uneven development, which is central to the operation of capitalism, and hence can provide no explanation for the patterns so painstakingly described. To stimulate a more theoretically-informed approach, this essay sketches an outline of the links among trade, the process of uneven development, the state, and the major economic actors, within which a research agenda focusing on explanation can be situated.