Analysis of Issues in Global Political Economy: Trade and Development

This report provides an overview of key concepts in global political economy, examining approaches like Marxism, Realism, and Liberalism in the Australian context. It explores the causes of globalization, prerequisites for development, and tensions between national political structures and the international economy, particularly in global trade. Further, the report discusses the relationship between borders and regions, reasons for the lack of progress in overcoming gender bias, and the reconciliation of tensions between economic growth and environmentalism. It also addresses the 'resource curse,' the impact of NGOs on GPE, and the role of a hegemon in ensuring a stable international financial system. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of international cooperation and policy development for sustainable global economic and political stability.

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Global Political Economy

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Question 1: Global, Political, and Economy approaches................................................................4
Question 2: Causes of Globalization...............................................................................................5
Question 3: Important Prerequisites for Development....................................................................6
Question 4: Role of Global Trade in illustrating tensions between national political structures and
international economy.....................................................................................................................7
Question 5: Relationship between borders and regions...................................................................8
Question 6: Reasons of Lack of Efforts for Overcoming Gender Bias...........................................9
Question 7: Reconciliation of Tensions between Economic Growth and Environmentalism.......10
Question 8: Cause of the 'Resource Curse' in Australia................................................................11
Question 9: Impact of NGO/GSM on GPE...................................................................................11
Question 10: Justification about Hegemon towards stability of IFS.............................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
This report is designed for developing understanding about different concepts related to global
political economy. It is helpful to understand the approaches to global political economy. Further
the report emphasizes on discussion over reasons of globalization. Different concepts being
included in this report for discussion are perquisites of development, assessment of tensions
between national political structure and international economy, the relationship between regions
and borders etc. In addition to this, the report provides ways that can be used to mitigate the
tensions between economic growth and environmentalism. Final section of this report facilitates
knowledge about causes of economic and political resource curse, and the relevance of a
hegemon for the attainment of a stable international financial system.

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Question 1: Global, Political, and Economy approaches
In Australia, Global Political and Economy (GPE) is characterised by level of growth, innovation
and transformation. The three basic approaches to Australian GPE in the current era are
Marxism, Realism and Liberalism, which assist the government in national integration and
cooperation. According to Marxism approach, class struggles take place at the global level and
include competition for colonial territories (Hodge, 2018). It considers the relationships with
capitalists being exploitative. It sees transitional corporations as the way of exploiting the
working class due to the concentration and centralization of power and capital. It becomes the
main feature of monarchy in Australia.
Another GPE approach used in Australia is Realism which considers world polity as a ‘scuffle
between states for self-interest and power’. Under this approach of global revolution, the
government rules out the territories and the public. Realism makes the achievement of economic
power as a source to dominate the political area or region and to set the roles of international
institutions.
Third approach to GPE is Liberalism which is associated with different economic and political
actors in Australia from an individual to specific interest groups, enterprises and corporations.
This approach is applied in Australia to incorporate individual needs and ideas for the benefit of
all. Hence, through liberalism, the Australian government evaluates the states’ actions and design
economic policies accordingly. It becomes different from Marxism and Realism by increasing
the value of the global relations and autonomous bodies within the international framework.

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Question 2: Causes of Globalization
Globalization refers to the process of growing interaction among people and organizations across
the globe as a result of technological advancement and resource sharing. In Australia,
globalization has taken place rapidly due to following reasons:
 Improved transportation: Increased cargo ships in Australia have led to the increased
cost of transporting of goods across the national boundaries (Beck, 2018). The increasing
Economies of scale also caused rise in the movement of merchandise more frequently
demanding for quick transportation. It resulted in globalisation.
 Free Trade: Australia being a part of World Trade Organization, designed various
schemes to develop free trade with other nations so as to eliminate barriers, ultimately
giving rise to globalization.
 Improvements of communications: The emergence of mobile applications and internet
across the Australia has also improved communication pace between people residing
overseas thus welcoming globalization.
 Labour employment and advanced skills: Many countries like India has reduced its
labour cost while providing highly talented and capable people. The labour-intensive
industries of Australia like clothing took benefit of inexpensive and easily available
labour force, leading to globalisation.
 Financial System: In the past years, Australia had undergone huge loss because of sub-
prime mortgage disaster. It affected a number of banks in the country bringing monetary
issues demanding global solutions.
 Multinational Companies: Rapid growth of MNCs in many cities of Australia resulted
in their international presence and sharing of wide resources.

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 Containerisation: Since 1970s, the demand for steel container has been increased in
Australia which decreased the cost of inters modal transport, making business more
efficient and cost effective.
Question 3:Important Prerequisites for Development
Australia has been a sincere international citizen by being committed to support people and
cooperating with each other in all situations and times. The government of Australia motivate
people to reach the great heights of generosity during domestic crisis as well as global crisis. The
key requirements of Australia’s development are as below:
 Developing policies towards the national development goals
 Designing long term solutions to eliminate or reduce poverty, and advance economic
growth and deliver stable and honest results to the society
 A sound focus on the disadvantaged section of community and raising their living
standard
 Increasing awareness for education and imparting necessary training
 Improve trade policies and promote autonomous operations in the sector of services to
deliver best quality
The above perquisites would guide the Australian government in producing sustainable
development gains (Breheny, and McQUAID, 2018). Also, generating more jobs in every city of
the country is essential requirement for the standard development. Investments should be made
in increasing the real income of people, specifically in infrastructure, land reform, rural
development and financing at local as well as national level. Individuals should be motivated to

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take initiatives to enhance their performance in private sector. It would develop the nation by
bringing rewards in the labour market.
Moreover, during adverse times, the government is required to hold long term opportunities and
make sure that every citizen of Australia gets equal access to the opportunities.
Question 4: Role of Global Trade in illustrating tensions between national political
structures and international economy
Australia has been one of the beneficiaries in the open rule based international trading system
that arose after the II World War. The global trade policies have contributed significantly in the
building of Australia’s commodity-intensive economic relationship with many countries
especially China. These policies also supported state-owned enterprises in foreign markets while
sponsoring commercial intellectual property (Nelson et al., 2018). The Global trade policies in
Australia have also opened blocked access to the internet and other business opportunities along
with removing investment restrictions.
Global trade policies ultimately led to decrease in tensions between Australia and other countries
like China and USA and transformed the economy into efficient service providing and
production sector. As a consequence, China shifted to liberal business rules to serve the interests
of Australia. During the harder times, the global trade policies enable the government to go for
big challenges and protect the trade practices based on global rules while pursuing high-quality
bilateral and regional free trade settlements.
Being a small-sized economy, Australia’s policies transmit limited power in Beijing and
Washington, for that matter. However, it has a great history of strong advocacy and coalition-
development within the World Trade Organization and its best strategy aims at shaping the

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governing rules of future trade. The country is at the track of developing more effective and
meaningful actions to work with like-minded countries.
Question 5: Relationship between borders and regions
As defined in geography, region is defined as an area which is basically divided by physical
characteristics, interaction of people, external environment and human impact features. The main
regions and sub-regions are primarily symbolised by their features only while in some cases by
transitory boundaries where jurisdiction zones like country borders are confined by law.
Being separated from international continental regions, there exist some atmospheric and
hydrosphere regions which cover the discrete climates and oceans above the water and land
masses of the earth (Hu et al., 2018). The land and water regions internationally are categorised
into sub-regions geographically limited by a hugeenvironmental features influencing large-scale
ecosystemlikeplains and mountains.
The concept of regions is significant and widely used among many divisions of geography as a
way of defining spatial areas each of which can confineit in regional contexts. For instance, eco-
region is a term appled in environmental geography, cultural region is used in cultural
geography, bio-region in biogeography, etc. The zone of geography that analyses regions
themselves is known as regional geography.
Borders are geographic areas of political enterprises or legal jurisdictions like sovereign
states, governments, federated states, and several subnational bodies. Borders are made through
treatiesamong social and political bodies that have jurisdiction over those areas.Theformation of
these agreements is known as boundary delimitation.

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Many borders such as an internal administrative border of states, or inter-state borders
existingwithin Schengen Areaare considered open and entirelyimprudent. On the other hand,
some borders are moderately or wholly controlled, and may be crossed legally only at
entitled border checkpoints and border zones.
Question 6: Reasons of Lack of Efforts for Overcoming Gender Bias
Gender inequality can be defined as the situation, in which there is no presence of equal rights to
male and females in different aspects. The gender based discrimination or gender biasness is
example of the gender inequality in an organization or in a country. Different efforts have been
taken into account for overcoming gender gaps by government of different countries. Equality
Act 2010 of UK is example of legislative initiatives that is taken into account for overcoming
different types of discriminations including the gender based discrimination (Razzu, 2014). The
legislative bodies and private organizations also impose the monetary penalties and fines over
person involved in gender based discriminations. The private organizations also design and
implement policies for overcoming the gender based inequalities.
There are various causes of the existence of problem of gender inequality. Example of these
causes involves bad mentality, cultural factors, lack of education level, religion and the lack of
empowerment. The cultural barriers and region factors create problems for the government and
international organizations while designing/ implementing effective initiatives for overcoming
the gender inequality issues. It is also very difficult for the government and human welfare
organization to interfere in the religious and cultural values and beliefs (WU, 2018). These
factors impose restrictions over the rights and actions of representatives of these bodies. Due to
lack of education in the females and girls in many geographical regions, it becomes difficult to
get support from society and social members in actions of overcoming gender inequality.

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Question 7: Reconciliation of Tensions between Economic Growth and Environmentalism
Yes, it is true that we can reconcile tensions between environmentalism and economic growth. In
general, the environmentalism or sustainability can be defined as the systematic and controlled
consumption of the natural resources so that availability of these resources will not be get
hampered for the future generations. The continuous economic growth has a negative impact
over the environmentalism or environmental sustainability (Opp and Osgood, 2013). The
tensions between economic growth and environmentalism can only be overcome through active
participation of the business organizations. The government and regulatory bodies can also take
different actions for reconciliation of such tensions. Example of these actions involves specifying
minimum height for the industrial chimneys, mandating the waste recycle operations, mandating
environmental and ecological practices etc. These practices will help to overcome tensions
related to environmentalism arising from economic growth.
At the organizational level, the decisions related to use of sustainable energy sources like solar
energy equipments, solar lights at premises of company, water restoration practices, rain water
harvesting practices etc can help to overcome the tensions between economic growth and the
environmentalism. It is reality that economic growth and the industrialization lead to adverse
consequences for the ecosystem and environment. This is also caused due to increased carbon
emission effects, and the contribution in different types of pollution including noise pollution,
water pollution, land pollution, and the air pollution (Cavagnaro and Curiel, 2017). The active
role of organizations in reducing the current level of contribution in these pollutions can also
help to ease the tensions between economic growth and the environmental sustainability.

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Question 8: Cause of the 'Resource Curse' in Australia
The resource curse, or paradox of plenty, is the situation that economies with a great amount
natural resources such as fossil fuels and certain minerals. These tend to undergo low economic
growth, low democracy, and adverse development outcomes than nations operating with limited
natural resources. In Australia, both political and economic factors are responsible for resource
curse. Australia is a rich first-world country primarilybecause of the mineral wealth.
However,the wealth is not equallyallocated, and this has created economic, social and political
issues that have become acute with time.
The disparity between various cities of Australia is increasing, which is driven by the mining
boom. In some states, all the individuals who want to work have a job. While in other states,,
only a few people have the skills and education to join the rapidly growing industries prospering
the area. It is not just Aboriginal people or the residents of Australia who are not successful.
Anyone who resides in a mining jurisdiction but does not work for a mining organization falls
behind to large extent(Hefeker, 2018). Also, their income level is not much good, yet they are
forced pay the same inflated, food and housing, and services tax. Not for the first time in
Australian history, Indigenous people and disadvantaged immigrants are sharing the pain of the
city-bush separation. Now, their common disadvantage is an impending economic and national
social policy issue that lies across the conventional accounts of the ‘tyranny of distance' and, in
increasingly difficult ways.
Question 9: Impact of NGO/GSM on GPE
The NGO/GSM’s that are operating at the international level are having the majority of the
impact on the economies and they are responsible for the steps that are taken for the revival of

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the issues such as poverty, education and environmental issue in GPE. Australia’s overseas aid is
the investment towards the better future of the world. It is identified that the aid provided to the
international NGO will lead to significant difference in the communities and allocation of the
funds to overcome the issues in the developing countries(Buck, 2017). it also leads to movement
towards the goal of sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction as majority of the
nations are facing the issues of poverty and it is not only the moral obligation to remove poverty
but also to enhance a permanent solution for the same. The NGO operating at the international
level is having grants from various nations which lead to tackling the issues in a significant
manner. Australia is spending its16% federal budget to overseas countries which has lead to
provide facilitation towards the 25% increase in the training midwives in Fiji. It also provides
87000 people to provide access to the safe and better sanitation facilities in Sri Lanka. 2.5
million Children’s were able to admission in the school in Afghanistan(World vision, 2015).
Question 10: Justification about Hegemon towards stability of IFS
Hegemonic is the theory that is related with the international relations in the field of GPE this
indicates that the international system will remain stable under the dominance of a single state
acting as the world power. It is considered as good that the hegemon leads to stability in the IFS
but there are very few areas where this theory applies so it leads to failure in some of the
instances. While comparing the economy of china and USA it is identified that the USA is still at
the top of the world along with the dominance of the US $ across the world(Hefeker, 2018). On
the other side china is moving towards Hegemon with strong military strength and economic
growth in the past few years. so the changing technology, power and economic growth will lead
to erode the international hierarch that will leads to undermine the current positions of the
dominant state and leads to instability in the international financial system. On the other side

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there are some findings that criticize the theory due to its impact on some specific areas and
contemporary economic openness and decline in the hegemonic influence will leads to
possibility of collective power.
Conclusion
It is concluded that global political economy leads to vast changes in the economies functioning
in the global environment. This has resulted to the introduction of the globalisation and
development in the economies that are competing in the global and political system. The
discussion about the various factors such globalisation, borders, regions and Gender biases leads
to develop better understanding about global impact of the factors towards the development and
need of the resource curse. The report also discusses the role of NGO’s and Hegemon towards
the international financial stability in the global political economies.

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References
Cavagnaro, E. and Curiel, G.H. (2017) The Three Levels of Sustainability. UK: Routledge.
Opp, S.M. and Osgood, J.L. (2013) Local Economic Development and the Environment: Finding
Common Ground. USA: CRC Press.
Razzu, G. (2014) Gender Inequality in the Labour Market in the UK. UK: Oxford University
Press.
WU (2018) Gender Inequality and its Causes.[Online]. Available at:
https://www.womenunlimited.org/gender-inequality-and-its-causes/ (Accessed: 30 May 2018).
World vision (2015) Why does Australia give aid?.[Online]. Available at:
https://www.worldvision.com.au/get-involved/advocacy/australian-aid (Accessed: 30 May
2018).
Buck, S. J. (2017) The global commons: an introduction. UK: Routledge.
Hefeker, C. (2018) Interest groups and monetary integration: The political economy of exchange
regime choice. UK: Routledge.
Hodge, G. (2018) Privatization: An international review of performance. UK: Routledge.
Beck, U. (2018) What is globalization? USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Breheny, M.J. and McQUAID, R., (2018) The development of high technology industries: an
international survey. UK: Routledge.
Nelson, V., Rueda, X. and Vermeulen, W.J. (2018) Challenges and opportunities for the
sustainability transition in global trade (Introduction). Business Strategy and the
Environment, 27(2), pp.173-178.

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Hu, H., Wang, S. and Ge, Y. (2018) Regional differences of border geo-cities in China and the
surrounding countries. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 28(3), pp.351-366.