Susan Strange 1

Susan Strange

Portrait of Susan Strange in 1980.

Susan Strange (June 9, 1923, Dorset – October 25, 1998, Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire) was a British scholar of international relations whowas "almost single-handedly responsible for creating internationalpolitical economy".[1] Notable publications include Casino Capitalism(1986), States and Markets (1988), The Retreat of the State (1996), andMad Money (1998).

Career

Susan Strange earned a first in Economics at the London School ofEconomics (LSE) in 1943; it would be twenty years before sheestablished her reputation as an academic. She raised a family of sixand worked as a financial journalist for The Economist, then TheObserver until 1965, when she began to conduct full-time research.She remained a full-time researcher at Chatham House (formerly TheRoyal Institute of International Affairs).[1][2] From 1978 to 1988, sheserved as the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations atLSE, and was the first woman at LSE to hold this chair andprofessorship. She served as Professor of International PoliticalEconomy at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy from 1989 to 1994. She also taught in Japan.

She was a major figure in the professional associations in both Britain and the United States. She was aninstrumental founding member and the first treasurer of the British International Studies Association and served asthe first female President of the International Studies Association in 1995.

Positions on international relationsStrange played a central role in developing international political economy as a field of study in Britain. She claimedthat in general, "economists simply do not understand how the global economy works" due to a poor understandingof power and an over-reliance on abstract economic models. However, she noted that political scientists also have awoeful understanding of international relations due to their emphasis on institutions and power. Thus she becameone of the earliest campaigners advocating the necessity of studying both politics and economics for internationalrelations scholars.[1]

Power and international financial marketsStates and Markets (1988) delineates four key channels that constitute power—security, production, finance, andknowledge; power is the ability to "provide protection, make things, obtain access to credit, and develop and controlauthoritative modes of interpreting the world". Strange posits that the most overlooked channel of power is financialaccess, which consequently becomes the most important one to comprehend; in other words, she argues that onecannot comprehend how the world works without a thorough understanding of international financial markets. Toillustrate, Casino Capitalism, published in 1986, discusses the dangers of the international financial system, whichshe considered confirmed by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.Her analysis in States and Markets (1988) focused on what she called the "market-authority nexus", the see-saw of power between the market and political authority. She maintained that the global market, relative to the nation state, had gained significant power since the 1970s and that a "dangerous gap" was emerging between the two. She

Susan Strange 2

considered nation states inflexible, limited by territorial boundaries in a world of fragile intergovernmentalcooperation; "Westfailure" is what she called Westphalia. Markets would be able to flout regulations and reign free,creating more uncertainty and risk in an already chaotic environment.

Bibliography• Sterling and British Policy: A Political Study of an International Currency in Decline [3] (1971) ISBN

978-0192149855• Casino Capitalism (1986) ISBN 0-7190-5235-1• States and Markets (1988) ISBN 0-8264-7389-X• Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley

(1991) ISBN 0-521-42386-4• The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (1996) ISBN 0-521-56429-8• Mad Money: When Markets Outgrow Governments (1998) ISBN 0-472-06693-5

References[1] Brown, Chris (July 1999). "Susan Strange: A Critical Appreciation" (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 20097617). Review of International

Studies (Cambridge University Press) 25 (3): 531–535. . Retrieved 12 June 2012.[2] Halliday, Fred (24 September 2008). "The revenge of ideas: Karl Polanyi and Susan Strange" (http:/ / www. opendemocracy. net/ article/

the-revenge-of-ideas-karl-polanyi-and-susan-strange). openDemocracy. . Retrieved 12 June 2012.[3] http:/ / books. google. com/ books/ about/ Sterling_and_British_policy. html?id=xAmrAAAAIAAJ

• Harry Bauer & Elisabetta Brighi (Eds) (2003) International Relations at LSE: A History of 75 Years, London:Millennium Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-9544397-0-5.

External links• Friman, H. Richard (Aug.–Oct. 2003). "Caught Up in the Madness? State Power and Transnational Organized

Crime in the Work of Susan Strange" (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 40645091). Alternatives. Culture &Conflicts 28 (4): 473–489. Retrieved 12 June 2012.

• Palan, Ronen (Summer 1999). "Susan Strange 1923-1998: A Great International Relations Theorist" (http:/ /www. jstor. org/ stable/ 4177305). Review of International Political Economy (Taylor & Francis, Ltd.) 6 (2):121–132. Retrieved 12 June 2012.

• Leander, Anna (February 2001). "Dependency Today: Finance, Firms, Mafias and the State: A Review of SusanStrange's Work from a Developing Country Perspective" (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 3993349). Third WorldQuarterly (Taylor & Francis, Ltd.) 22 (1): 115–128. Retrieved 12 June 2012.

• Critical Biography (http:/ / journals. cambridge. org/ action/ displayAbstract?fromPage=online& aid=33749)• Obituary (http:/ / www2. warwick. ac. uk/ fac/ soc/ csgr/ newsletters/ nl2. pdf)

Article Sources and Contributors 3

Article Sources and ContributorsSusan Strange  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=528952605  Contributors: Alan Liefting, All Hallow's Wraith, Childzy, Ecpralias, Foxhound66, Francium12, Fæ, Gallowolf,Gareth Jones, Haeinous, Harro5, Hu12, J.manchester, Leminh91, LoopersdeBruges, Malleus Fatuorum, Mogism, Mouchemesse, Nirvana77, Omnipaedista, Peregrine981, Pymouss, Ratarsed,SocialScienceLondon, Tonyrayjonesey, Waacstats, WikHead, Yug, 27 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:Professor Susan Strange, c1980.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Professor_Susan_Strange,_c1980.jpg  License: unknown  Contributors: Library of the LondonSchool of Economics and Political Science

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