Andrew C. Sobel specializes in the politics of global finance with a focus on domestic explanations of international behavior. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. He is on the faculty of International and Area Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, a member of the Academic Board of Directors of the Center for New Institutional Social Sciences, and on the Faculty Advisory Council to the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital at Washington University. He has won numerous teaching awards. He has published many articles and is the author or editor of six books, including Domestic Choices, International Markets (1994); State Institutions, Private Incentives, Global Capital (1999, 2002); Political Economy and Global Affairs (2006); The Challenges of Globalization (2009); and Birth of Hegemony: Crisis, Financial Revolution, and Emerging Global Networks (2012).
Although many international political economy texts offer good descriptions of what events have occurred in global economic and political relations, they make little attempt to develop explicit theoretical frameworks explaining why. Andrew SobelÆs International Political Economy in Context: Individual Choices, Global Effects takes a micro approach to international political economy that considers the fact that individualsùnot nationsùmake choices. Grounding policy choices in the competitive environs of domestic politics and decision-making processes, Sobel illustrates how policymakers choose among alternatives, settling on those that are most in sync with their self-interest. The book is structured to build studentsÆ skills for a sophisticated understanding of how and why events unfold in the international political economy. Students become versed in the primary assumptions and structural/macro conditions of economic and political geography in the global arena. An examination of micro-level conditions and mechanisms introduces the factors that influence political and economic outcomes. Students are then able to use those primary assumptions and micro-level arrangements to make sense of past and present changes in the global political economy. Those familiar with SobelÆs first volume, Political Economy and Global Affairs, will easily find their way through this new book. Anyone looking for a compelling, accessible, and fully integrated rational choice perspective on international political economy will find it here.
