8 - Susanne Soederberg: A Critical and Multidisciplinary Global Political Economy

Summary

Introduction

In her works, Susanne Soederberg adopts a critical and multidisciplinary perspective to understand the global political economy's dynamic and complex nature. As per the late Robert W. Cox's (1981) distinctions, critical theory diverges from traditional problem-solving approaches in its questioning of pre-existing structures and their political agendas/ commitments. A critical understanding of the global political economy questions the bases on which its structures rest, interrogates the political relations and processes it perpetuates and reproduces and, in doing so, resists and seeks to disrupt them. Such a critical approach helps account for gaps in our existing knowledge by acknowledging how the global political economy operates on multiple levels and scales, in ways that are connected but that also unfold differently in various temporal and spatial settings (Brenner et al, 2010). It reveals underlying tensions and power relations driving these political economic relations and processes, rather than treating the status quo as set in stone. Such a multi-scalar and fundamentally relational approach expands the field and study of political economy, allowing it to converse and engage with questions of geography, development, governance, finance and others (see also Chapters 1 and 6 in this volume). It both broadens and deepens our understanding of how global political economic structures, actors and processes necessarily interact with, impact and often shape issues in various spheres and across different levels.

In this chapter, I zoom in on Soederberg's contributions to this comprehensive and multidimensional understanding of the global political economy and capitalism, and to the study of critical economic geography. Soederberg's research is diverse, both empirically and in terms of the contributions it provides. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, Soederberg takes seriously questions both within and beyond orthodox and mainstream understandings of the global economy. While she primarily employs a Marxian framework with strong emphasis on historical materialism, Soederberg complicates classic Marxist approaches by accounting for different structures of power, including imperialism, gender and race. She thus provides nuanced and more comprehensive analyses of diverse social and political phenomena that might not immediately seem connected. Soederberg's corpus encompasses five single-authored books, alongside a wide range of articles. Through them she analyses how global financial institutions responded to the economic downturns of the early 2000s and their impact on and power over Global South countries (Soederberg, 2004), and (re)situates global economic governance within broader capitalist relations, connecting it to American power and empire (Soederberg, 2006).