33: Thomas Oatley – Complexity Theory and Political Economy 2.0

Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

Professor Thomas Oatley is the Corasaniti-Zondorak Chair of International Relations at Tulane University. He focuses his research and teaching on the intersection of American hegemony and international political economy (IPE). Widely regarded as a scholar at the leading-edge of IPE research, Thomas has in recent years adopted an explicit complex systems frame to undergird a powerful critique of orthodox IPE and international relations approaches to studying the global economy and world order. In this conversation we talk about the value of thinking in terms of complex systems, why complexity theory remains on the margins of global political scholarship, the nexus between our global financial and energy systems, green industrial policy and much, much more. Thomas can be found here: https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/departments/political-science/people/thomas-oatley He tweets @thoatley We discussed: ‘Energy and the Complexity of International Order’, Global Environmental Politics (2021): https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article-abstract/21/4/20/107829/Energy-and-the-Complexity-of-International-Order ‘Green industrial policy and the global transformation of climate politics’ (with B. Allan and J. I. Lewis), Global Environmental Politics (2021): https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/21/4/1/107853/Green-Industrial-Policy-and-the-Global ‘Toward a political economy of complex interdependence’, European Journal of International Relations (2019): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066119846553?journalCode=ejta Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990): https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/collapse-complex-societies?format=PB&isbn=9780521386739