Introduction

In 2009, Mark Blyth, the editor of the comprehensive and substantive first version of the Routledge Handbook of International Political Economy, defined it as not “a textbook” seeking to establish what International Political Economy (IPE) was, but a picture of a pluralist field that was flourishing internationally. Indeed, a long list of scholars has contributed to enhancing IPE, defining its multidisciplinary character with insights from history, sociology, gender studies, postcolonialism, postdevelopmentalism, geopolitics and security. Few field studies are so lively and challenging given its wider range of diverse traditional or heterodox perspectives, and methodologies to grasp issues of development and conflict.