Cultural Political Economy (CPE) is an emerging and still developing trans-disciplinary approach oriented to post-disciplinary horizons. It is concerned with making ‘cultural turns’ in the study of political economy to enhance its interpretive and explanatory power.

Intellectually CPE originated in a synthesis of critical discourse analysis, critical political economy, neo-Gramscian state theory, neo-Gramscian International Political Economy, the regulation approach, governmentality and governance studies. As such it does not add a separate realm of ‘culture’ to existing concerns with politics and economics; instead it emphasizes that the economic and political spheres are always-already cultural and that taking this into account transforms the study of political economy and cognate fields.