Understanding Emergent Technology, Instability and Power in International Political Economy

How can the instabilities accompanying the ‘disruptive’ integration of emergent technologies in the global political economy be understood? This chapter argues that International Political Economy (IPE), an interdisciplinary field of study whose roots lie in the pre-disciplinary split of economics and politics, provides two useful sets of approaches for making sense of the instabilities characterising an increasingly digital global political economy. First, it illustrates how instrumental rationalist approaches highlight linear distributions of losses and gains emanating from technological changes for the power of a variety of state and non-state actors operating in and across national borders. Second, the chapter highlights a set of perspectives that consider the less predictable features and more fragile outcomes stemming from evolving co-constitutions of power and technology. Varying in analytical complexity, these two broad sets of IPE perspectives provide what is argued to be complementary degrees of analytical value in understanding the evolving effects of emergent technologies in a digitising global political economy.