The International Political Economy Group brings together scholars that study the history, dynamics, and impacts of global capitalism. Group members employ a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and research methods, and have expertise across a range of world regions, including Latin America, North America, East Asia, Africa, and Europe. The group runs many activities throughout the year, including a Reading Group, Work-in-Progress Workshops, and a Speaker Series.
Group members are keen to supervise PhDs on the Political Economy of:
Members:
Dr Gordon CheungAssociate Professor in International Relations of China
Research interests:
Gordon C K Cheung is Associate Professor in International Relations of China. He is Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies and Editor-in-Chief of East Asia: An International Quarterly. He previously held visiting positions in the Academia Sinica, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, University of Oxford, Renmin University, University of Tubingen, and Tsinghua University. His academic papers appeared in Political Studies, Sustainable Development, Journal of Contemporary China, China: An International Journal, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Pacific Business Review, amongst others. He published four books on Chinese political economy: China in the Global Political Economy: From Developmental to Entrepreneurial, Intellectual Property Rights in China: Politics of Piracy, Trade and Protection, China Factors: Political Perspectives and Economic Interactions and Market Liberalism: American Foreign Policy toward China. Gordon engages a long-term project on the global view of China’s economic development and transformation. His recent research projects cover the politics of China-Taiwan economic relations and the political economy of food and the global Chinese.
Dr Jack CopleyAssociate Professor in International Political Economy
Jack’s research explores how states struggle and strategise to govern capitalist development. He recently completed a major project that drew from declassified government documents to explore why British states liberalised the City of London financial centre in the 1970s and 1980s. This was published by Oxford University Press in 2022 as a book titled Governing Financialization. Jack’s current research focusses on the political economy of climate change. More specifically, he is writing on the challenges of decarbonising steel and other heavy industries.
Dr Jessica Eastland-Underwood
Career Development Fellow in International Political Economy
Research Interests:
Jess is focussed on the intersection between everyday political thought, economic ideas and racism. Her research looks at the way that regularly people deploy economic language to justify political arguments that minimise or delegitimise the material reality of racism. She is currently working on a book that will publish the findings of her study of ‘the economy’ in Defund the Police and anti-lockdown protests during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her published work has looked at ‘the market’ used in children’s podcasts and ‘free markets’ in the Tea Party movement.
Dr María Eugenia GiraudoAssistant Professor in International Political Economy
Eugenia’s research interests are on the political economy of development in South America, with a focus on agricultural commodities. Her research has focused on the impact of the commodity boom in the region, with a specific focus on the role of soybean in the political economy and spatial transformations that countries – Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay in particular – experienced. Eugenia has also been involved in projects looking at regional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to natural resource management. Currently, she is interested in looking at the political economy of transport infrastructure oriented to commodity production and trade in Latin America. She recently published a co-authored book with Bristol University Press titled The Gendered Face of Covid-19 in the Global South.
Dr Carla Ibled
Carla’s research critically engages with contemporary discourses of neoliberalism. She is interested in the ways economic theories – and specifically neoliberal thought – function both as economic doctrines and as mobilising affective infrastructures. Her work examines how economics is practiced and imagined today, in the work of economists and economic thinkers, but also in popular culture and in everyday life. Her recent publications include articles on influential figures of the neoliberal movement like Friedrich Hayek and Louis Rougier, and on Silicon Valley founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as well as a policy report on neoliberal space policies for the think tank Common Wealth.
Dr Javier Moreno ZacarésAssistant Professor in International Political Economy
Javier’s research interests revolve around the historical sociology of capitalism as a social system, with a focus on the political economy of housing provision. His research covers from the historical puzzle around the origins of capitalism, to the ongoing debates around financialisation and secular stagnation. He has recently completed a book-length study historicising the evolution of residential capitalism in Spain since the nineteenth century, which was published by Routledge in 2024.
Dr Ferran Pérez MenaAssistant Professor in International Relations of East Asia
Ferran’s research explores the development of new Chinese transnational networks in the Global South and East Asia in the new geopolitical context of global disorder and growing multipolarity. He is also interested in understanding the political and economic effects of the transnational connections between Chinese elites and Western elites. Furthermore, he is interested in Chinese ideas about the ‘international’, which encompass multiple traditions of economic thought and normative ideas about the world order.
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