Global Political Economy can be understood by the merits and outcome of globalization, a phenomenon that links people and technology to one another and intertwines ideas across nations and borders. It is within globalization that we begin to understand the engines of market power, the reach of economic might and global development of individual states as well as the holistic lens when viewing the relationship of each state in relation to one another. Globalization’s contribution to Global Political Economy proves itself to be the masterpiece that defines the global status quo of the world today, with capabilities of ideas exported from one hemisphere to the other, transcending an assembly line of productions in one continent then having parts assembled in another to be sold in and to an entirely other country. A relationship building transaction that is molded by the inner workings of parties spanning across the globe dependent on one another from the initial stage of resources to accumulation of capital and the labor behind the production. These linkages of globalization stretch further beyond when globalization first took any shape or form and today it has transformed the market and the global status quo into a powerhouse. Rooted from the dependent relationship of the North and South, a relationship that best describes a collection of developed and wealthy nation states with its partners of developing and underdeveloped states. This marriage of the North and South has been the epitome of relationships and the drive behind Globalization and its contribution to Global Political Economy. To fully understand the accomplishments or perhaps even missteps of Globalization towards Global Political Economy is within the sum of its parts; the relationship between the North and South.

The North and South, often referred to as the Global North and Global South, separating the collection of nation states above and below the equator with many exceptions but simply to group the developed and the developing countries. An aspect driven on the gap of a socio-economic and political divide. The North covering countries of North America, Western Europe, Australia, Brunei as well as the Asian Tigers, and the South as the rest of the world living in the Third World. In understanding the relationship between the countries in the Global North and Global South, would be to analyze the history of the relationship and its evolution into the one today, essentially the dynamics of how its historical past juxtaposed with its contemporary upbringing can affect and provide a clearer understanding of Global Political Economy.

The historical aspect that will be examined will be one that predates post-colonialism and prior to the de-colonialization after the Second World War. If it predates post-colonialism then it’s the history and relationship stir of colonialism itself, one that

“Given colonialism’s deep entrenchment in the power structures of the global political economy, however, the ‘abyssal global lines’ dividing metropolitan and peripheral societies keep on reproducing themselves (Santos 2014B).”

A dependent relationship fueled by Marxist capitalism and its merits on profit-making capabilities with Neoliberalist institutions and agency that entrap and perpetuate the mechanisms of the rooted structures of Immanuel Wallerstein’s World System’s Theory. The World System theory provides structures of the historical relationship between the North and South with motives towards Marxist’s capital accumulation in pursuits of profits. Neoliberalist institutions bound with the World System’s Theory and capital accumulation ensures that the process of exploitation and unequal exchange remain cyclical. Motivated by profits through capitalism, provided by the interconnectedness of the classes; the possessors of capital and that of the laborers, and within this structure, paints a relationship between the North and South as a union of capitalism and dependency.