Introduction

Chapter 1 discusses the basic premises of political economy. It proposes a “pre-disciplinary” understanding of it, as was common until the emergence of the separate disciplines of political science, sociology, and economics. The chapter emphasizes the inseparability of politics and economics and points to the importance of the variation of the spatial and temporal context for economic action. Against this background, three sub-disciplines of contemporary political economy thinking are outlined: comparative, international, and historical political economy. The necessity of linking them is explained with regard to the increasing erosion of the liberal world economic order and the rise of large emerging economies such as China. Finally, the chapter presents the analytical perspective of the book, which is informed in particular by the reflections of the social scientist and economic historian Karl Polanyi. The book follows his idea of the economy as an instituted process. At its core is the idea that an economic order must be organized and that there are very different institutional solutions to these organizational problems across space and time.