How to tell better stories about the history and future of global political economy

Benjamin J. Cohen's story of the transatlantic divide in IPE follows a simple plot, creating expectations concerning the outcome and culmination of this process. The conclusion is not predictable - there is no story unless our attention is being held in suspense by contingencies - but it must be acceptable. In Cohen's story, the expectation created is that IPE will follow American positivism and theories but involves 'British' moral judgements and sentiments of justice. However, there are better ways of telling better stories about the history and future of Global Political Economy. First, the methodological dividing line is essentially false, i.e. based on an anachronistic understanding of science. Causal explanation involves hermeneutical understanding; and does not imply predictions in the sense of positivism. Second, I argue that the rise of IPE should be read in terms of debates on political economy that have continued since the eighteenth century and have never been limited to Britain and the United States. The rise of new Political Economy in politics, sociology, business studies and other fields is a challenge to the hegemony of orthodox neoclassical economics. Analogically to the time of the Great Depression when collective learning did occur and largely in Keynesian terms, the on-going and future learning is contingent also on the consequences of the orthodox dominance in policy-making.