Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Issue 274 January 11, 2021 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory

What has happend on capitol hill last week can, in my humble view, be safely dubbed as a 'Polanyian moment'. In his famous Great Transformation Polanyi emphasized that the successive expansion of markets and the associated trend towards increasing commodification will eventually provoke 'countermovements' that – in some way or the other – stand ready to challenge the prevailing institutional and economic order. While for media commentators it might be surprising to see such a countermovement – especially such a scary version of it – rising in the US, which for some is an archetype for democratic governance, it is not at all surprising to a Polanyian observer. Indeed, this hypothetical figure would potentially have predicted such an upsurge exactly for the US, where the commodifcation of major dimensions of life & society, like labor, education, health and housing, has progressed further than in most other democratic countries.

Most of our mainstream colleagues will probably find the above argument obscure, at least because of the unfamiliar terms it employs, but probably also because of the long-term perspective this view implicitly takes. In my experience, mainstream economists often treat time as 'neutral' in the sense that they neglect the problem of socio-historical specifity as well as possibility of more long-term (cyclical) trends, which matters especially when the system operates quite slowly relative to the observers. This is not to deny, that our colleagues can say many smart things about how to consider time in a more narrow and more well-defined econometric setting, but most of these arguments operate on the a different level (although one should always mind the ergodic axiom ;-).

Aside from the role of time, also the concept of commodification is somewhat alien to our mainstream colleagues. In the conversations I had, the more open ones will try to rationalize your argument in their own theoretical terms. Typically this is achieved by combining some skill-biased technological change or Stolper-Samuelson-argument to envisage a situation of rising inequality, which is then complemented with relative income concerns or inequality aversion to arrive at a decrease in overall welfare. Although this reproduces a substantial fraction of the intended message, what get's lost in this story is that the expansion of markets is seen as something detrimental in the Polanyian account (although markets are not condemned per se), which is hard to accept, even for a short moment, if you are trained to equate the expansion of markets with an increase in overall efficiency & social welfare.

These experiences have taught me that inter-paradigmatic communication is often difficult to practice as it requires patience, mental flexibility and some knowledge on competing theoretical approaches on both sides. All too easily a gulf of understanding might emerge from such a constellation, even among mainstream authors: just think of the cold silence by which the economic mainstream treats Thomas Piketty's new book Capital and Ideology. While this book is surely contestable in some aspects (see e.g. here), Pikettys efforts to explicitly incorporate (a) a long-term historical view as well as (b) the Polanyian notions of commodification and social embeddedness seem laudable. At least to me, it is interesting and encouraging to see that some coherence between heterodox accounts and the perspectives of open-minded mainstream researchers can be established, especially when it comes to the 'big questions & challenges' of the 21st century.

All the best,

Jakob

PS: Two posts below are closely related to the issues covered here: first, the ASE announcement in response to the capital hill events captures the gist of my conceptual argument in a more practical & applied tone. Second, the initiative Democratizing Work takes a more long-term view on these issues by proposing concrete reforms based on the idea of decommodifying work.

© public domain

Table of contents

Call for Papers

15th Economic Policy International Conference (online, May 2021)

27-28 May 2021 | online

Since the 70s, the world economy has been experiencing structural changes that have been spreading during the first part of the 21st century. The economic crisis that has affected the so-called developed countries since 2008 is accentuating economic changes. Sectoral patterns are changing, new technological trends and the role of the State are altering and the physiognomy of world relations is being redesigned. Due to both the State's own transformations, as well as those of the private sector, in a context of economic internationalization, the role of economic policy in these conditions of economic change emerges to the surface. The XV International Conference on Economic Policy will try to make contributions of substances to determine the problems of economic policy in the 21st century. The interest of the conference is oriented not only towards the study of the various instrumental policies but also aims to highlight the different novel problems that arise at the present economic crossroads, while trying to explain the new objectives of economic policy. The aspects of international economic policy and, even more, in the changing context in the relations between the different countries are not alien to the interest of these days. In the same way, we are also interested in the most academic aspects related to Economic Policy, in particular, those related to the communication and teaching of this discipline.

Guidelines for abstract Submissions:

Abstracts should be maximum 500 words long and it should explain the content of the communication and the relations with the Economic Policies should be highlighted. It should be sent through the submission form (please see below) and before January 29, 2021 February 14, 2021 (extended).

At the presentation, a text is not required, although it is recommended a visual presentation (power-point). It is expected, depending on the financial provision, the edition of a proceeding book. This is voluntary; all speakers who wish their presentation to be included, should send the final text in the conditions and deadline indicated after the end of the conference.

Please find further information on the offical website.

Submission Deadline: 29 January 2021

18th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons: “Our Commons Future”

The organizers of the XVIIIth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons welcome abstracts for contributions to the conference to be held online during various weeks in 2021. With the theme of the conference, “Our Commons Future”, we intend to bring together commons scholars from a diverse set of application domains to address future governance challenges from the local to global scale. This conference will provide opportunities to connect academic research with practitioners’ experience and vice versa.

Due to the consequences of COVID-19 we are not able to organize an in-person international conference in 2021, but we are offering a series of virtual events to bring people together. We are organizing 9 short topical conferences between February and September where you can present individual talks, special sessions, webinar panels and more. Our original IASC 2021 dates October 11-15, 2021 are reserved for a virtual conference focused on membership meetings, workshops and webinar panels on cross-cutting topics.

Important dates:

We invite you to visit the conference website at 2021.iasc-commons.org where you can learn about the details of the various conferences in 2021.

We would like to make the conferences widely accessible and therefore we seek Sponsors to fund waivers for colleagues from the global south and students in general. If you are interested in sponsoring one of the events, check out the websites, and contact the IASC 2021 conference chair Marco Janssen to discuss the opportunities available.

Questions? Get in touch with the conference organizers: iasc@asu.edu.

1st History of Economic Thought Diversity Caucus Online Conference (online, May 2021)

24 - 26 May 2021 | online

The 1st History of Economic Thought Diversity Caucus Online Conference will be held via Zoom, May 24-26, 2021, in advance of the annual meetings of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET). Our goal is to spread sessions out over several days in order to include speakers and audience members across multiple continents, and several time zones.

We seek contributions that address topics, themes, personae, and institutions that typically, and too often, go unaddressed in professional forums. We are especially interested in contributions that explore the meaning of diversity, pluralism, and inclusion for the history of economic thought and related fields, and its significance for practitioners in these fields. Papers scheduled to be presented at either the ESHET or History of Economics Society conferences are eligible for the Diversity Caucus Conference. A selection of papers presented at the Diversity Caucus Conference may be published (in English) in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, subject to peer review.

Possible Topics:

Themes:

Personae:

Institutions:

If you would like to present at the Conference, please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to diversityhet@gmail.com. Co-authored papers are encouraged.

Abstracts in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Japanese will be considered, but we ask that speakers either present in English or provide English-language presentation materials (e.g., Powerpoint slides, a translated manuscript), in order to facilitate communication and discussion.

Submission Deadline: 1 March 2021

85th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought (Osaka, Sept. 2021)

25 - 26 September 2021 | Osaka University of Economics, Osaka, Japan/online

The 85th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought (JSHET) will be held at Osaka University of Economics, Osaka on September 25th and 26th, 2021. Proposals for papers or sessions on all aspects of the history of economic thought are welcome. An abstract of about 400 words for a paper and 800 words for a session should be submitted on the online application form no later than February 9th, 2021. Please be aware that the conference can be held online according to the situation caused by covid-19.

For additional information and updates please visit the offical website.

Submission Deadline: 9 February 2021

9th Graduate Seminar on the Future of Constitutional Economics (online, Feb. 2021)

3-4 February 2021 | online

The University Erfurt invites submissions to the 9th edition of the Graduate Seminar on the Future of Constitutional Economics organised by the University Erfurt and the Wilhelm-Röpke-Institute. The format is directed at PhD students who work on the history of, or current topics in, constitutional economics and related fields: The seminar will take place online and, as in earlier years, we explicitly encourage presentations in English.

Interested scholars are invited to send their abstracts (150 words) to Prof. Dr. Stefan Kolev or Alexander Heß. Please find further information (german only) here.

Submission Deadline: 14 January 2021

Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) 2021 Meeting (April 2020, online)

12 - 25 April 2021 | online

The 42st Annual Meeting of the Association for Institutional Thought is scheduled to take place April 12-25 2021, online in conjunction with the 63rd Annual Western Social Science Association Conference. The conference will be virtual, but we intend to work hard to create space to interact with one another.

Conference Theme: “Reality: The Value of Institutional Empiricism”

The Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) invites you to submit papers and/or propose full sessions that examine the ways in which experience and observation informs our understanding of the economy and policy recommendations. The kernels of this year’s theme were planted at the AFEE meetings before everything changed. It is inspired by James Swaney who, along with Paulette Olson, introduced me to institutional thought. Jim used to point out in department meetings that institutionalism is based on inductive reasoning and that this is vastly superior to neoclassical economics, which is based on deductive reasoning built on false assumptions. It is also inspired by the observation that mainstream economists do not believe econometrics results when it contradicts their pre-conceived notions (consider the research on minimum wage increases).

Nevertheless, over the course of the year, the importance of thinking grounded in reality has taken on new significance as more things that used to be matters of science have become politicized. Economics has always been politicized. Economic data has always been subject to political manipulation. So, I think we have something useful to say about 2020 when reality and the efforts to distort it have become an overarching motif. Possible expressions of this theme:

Naturally, we welcome papers that do not fall into these areas as well. AFIT values pluralism and interdisciplinarity, and papers/sessions from non-economists as well as those connecting institutional economics to other heterodox traditions are encouraged. We also encourage sessions reviewing and discussing recently published books, especially those written by AFIT members. As an organization with a student-development and pedagogical emphasis we encourage papers
and panels in the area of economics pedagogy. Likewise, students, both graduate and undergraduate, are welcome to submit paper and panel proposals; and AFIT (along with the Association for Evolutionary Economics) will be sponsoring a prize for outstanding student papers.

Submission of Abstracts

Please submit Abstracts via the online plattform.

Proposals for complete panels and roundtables to be held through Zoom or similar platform are strongly encouraged. Send an e-mail to Eric R. Hake if you have a webinar proposal or if you have submitted only a paper but want to be part of a panel. I will consider whether individual paper proposals can be organized into panel webinars according to theme or whether individual papers presentations make more sense. We also encourage panels and webinars with a solid theme that could be recorded and used as a teaching resource.

Submission Deadline: 29 January 2021

Oeconomia: Special Issue on "International Trade and Finance – Worlds Apart?"

Editors of the special issue: Mauro Boianovsky (Universidade de Brasilia) and Hans-Michael Trautwein (Universität Oldenburg)

Ever since it has been taught as a distinct subject, International Economics has come in two separate parts that reflect the general micro-macro divide in the discipline. ‘International Trade’ is based on microeconomic reasoning in terms of comparative advantage, economies of scale and product differentiation. ‘International Finance’ is largely conceptualized in terms of ‘open-economy macroeconomics’ which set the focus on exchange-rate regimes, stabilization policies and financial capital flows. In other words, International Economics is divided in a real sphere and a monetary sphere, though not neatly. The recurrent debates about ‘global imbalances’ in the current accounts of the balances of payment are an example that attests to the difficulties. Do persistent current account deficits signal critical imbalances in the world economy? Or do they follow from an efficient division of labour in risk diversification? Attempts to address such questions in general equilibrium frameworks tend to be blind on the monetary side, whereas more ‘applied’ approaches – for example in international political economy, development economics, or geographical economics – tend to lose sight of systemic aspects.

The history of economics is full of different attempts to bridge the gaps between international trade and international finance. Some of the ideas developed in the past are interesting for their content and context in their own right, others might hold a potential for analytical reconstruction to further present economic thinking; yet another group attempts may be instructive in their ‘failures’. This special issue to appear in Œconomia is dedicated to articles that deal with one or several of the following topics:

Procedure and timeline: Researchers who would like to be considered for participation in this special issue of Œconomia should submit, via email attachment, the paper title, an extended abstract (1000-1500 words), and the affiliations of all authors. This information should be sent to oeconomia@openedition.org and is due by January 31th 2021. Authors whose contributions are selected will be notified by February 15th, 2021. Submission of full papers for peer review is expected September 1st, 2021. Publication of the special issue is planned for Spring 2022. For further information, please contact the editors or send a message to oeconomia@openedition.org.

Important dates:

Expression of interest and abstract: January 31st, 2021

Notification by the editors: February 15th, 2021.

Deadline for submission of full papers: September 1st, 2021.

Planned publication of the issue: Spring 2022.

Oeconomia: Special Issue on "Women, Economics and History: Diversity within Europe"

The literature on the history of economics that focuses on the presence of women in economics has recently grown exponentially. Suffice it to think of the volumes edited by Dimand, Dimand and Forget (1995 and 2000), the huge bibliographic work by Madden, Pujol and Seiz (2004), the handbook by Madden and Dimand (2019), as well as the very recent book by Becchio (2020). Moreover, numerous studies on women’s participation in economic debates or on the role of women in economic institutions in the historical perspective are currently in progress.

Some of these works cover a very wide area. For example, The Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought includes studies on the USA, India, Latin America, Japan, China, Africa, the Arab world and Europe (Italy, Austria, the UK, Russia and the Soviet Union). While recognizing the urgent need for an inclusive global perspective, this call for papers narrows its focus to the diversity within Europe for two main reasons. First, there are no historical works on women in economics specifically devoted to this geographical area. Second, a broader coverage would make it more difficult to analyse the complexity of the different European contexts, especially the less studied ones, which is the main aim of this special issue of Œconomia.

This call for papers seeks to stimulate the reconstruction of the divergent historical paths of the many European realities that are likely to have produced a differentiated substratum of thinking about women in economics and their place within the economy. We intend to attract papers that discuss the deep diversities within Europe with the aim of linking the analysis of women in the history of economic thought to the focus on their intellectual traditions, properly contextualizing it within women’s different countries, regions and periods. The special issue aims at covering a wide time span, taking as a starting point the Enlightenment, the period when associations by women activists were created. We welcome and encourage contributions on any later period, including recent and contemporary history, considering specificities linked to the two World Wars, the Cold War, revolutionary movements, the creation of the European Union, and other major historical and political events and processes that have marked the history of Europe.

Examples of different perspectives that can be adopted to tackle the heterogeneity of European histories include:

Procedure and timeline: Researchers who would like to be considered for participation in this special issue of Œconomia should submit, via email attachment, the title of their paper, an extended (1,000-1,500 words) abstract, and the affiliations of all authors. This information should be sent to oeconomia@openedition.org by January 25th, 2021 at the latest. Authors whose contributions are selected by the editors will be notified by February 7th, 2021. Full paper submission is expected by August 25, 2021. During the last quarter of 2021, a workshop will be organized at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where authors will be invited to present and discuss their papers. This event will depend on financial constraints. The normal process of peer review, revisions and acceptance of papers is expected to end by May 2022. For further information, please contact the editors of the special issue or send a message to oeconomia@openedition.org.

Editors of the special issue: Astrid Agenjo Calderón (Universidad Pablo de Olivade), Magdalena Małecka (University of Helsinki & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), and Manuela Mosca (University of Salento)

Important dates:

Expression of interest and abstract: January 25th, 2021

Notification by the editors: February 7th, 2021.

Deadline for submission of full papers: August 25th, 2021.

Workshop: Sept-Dec. 2021

Publication of the issue: June 2022

Regions in Recovery: Building Sustainable Futures - Global e-Festival (June 2021, online)

2-18 June 2021 | online

A small number of societies and research led organisations have come together and agreed that rather than run competing events we will contribute to co-hosting a Festival of regional and related research. This multi-partner event powered by the Regional Studies Association will run globally, online from 2nd June - 18th June 2021. Partners’ calls will be announced beginning of 2021. Details on the Regional Studies Association’s (RSA) call for abstracts and special sessions are listed below. The RSA will provide its newly developed events and networking app (RSA Hub) which incorporates a conference wire frame for virtual events to host a multi-strand event within an app enabling participant networking, Q&A, multiple presentation types and exhibition spaces as well as rooms for social and well-being occasions. Partner organisations will have spaces to showcase their activities and we hope to include a job fair.

Recent months have seen the exceptional become the ordinary. From social distancing to widespread travel restrictions, new quarantine rules to lockdowns and remote working, the significant shock of Covid-19 and its implications are becoming clearer for all to see. And yet, as attention switches to recovery, calls to pivot away from business-as-usual approaches are clashing with structural forces opposed to significant change. Add in the global climate and migration crises, rise in populism, racial tensions and the #blacklivesmatter movement, geopolitical manoeuvrings by the United States, Russia, China, EU, and the question on most people’s lips is: what happens next?

Against this backdrop, regional studies are more vital than ever to inform public debate and invoke appropriate policy responses. Indeed, regional studies has tools tailored to understanding the spatial impacts of significant shocks, be they economic, political, social or environmental. For this reason, regional research is once more spearheading major efforts to provide the type of reliable, robust knowledge necessary to support cities and regions in their recovery. 2020 has taught us that the greater the change the greater the disruption, but also the greater the disruption the greater the chance of change. As we look ahead though, it is critical that we consider fundamental questions about the significance of these changes. What changes will ultimately endure? Which changes will be short-lived and quickly fizzle away? Why is this and what are the implications for cities and regions? What does it tell us about the capacity for regional research to influence policy and affect meaningful change?

The Regions in Recovery Festival presents a timely opportunity to discuss and debate these important issues, to establish the need and nature of future research imperatives in the field, and to address the concerns and challenges confronting practitioners and policymakers. The focus on rapid change is an invitation to step outside the narrow confines of existing debate to address issues of profound relevance, significance and importance to the future of regions and cities.

The RSA is keen to attract papers and sessions which rethink cities and regions by identifying new fields of enquiry, address a broad research and policy agenda, and include contributions from any discipline which can offer relevant insights at local and regional levels. Papers which are highly innovative, collaborative, international or multi-disciplinary are especially welcome.

More details on the RSA call, abstract or special session submission can be found at the official website. If you would like more information about how to join the RSA contribution to the Regions in Recovery Festival, please contact Lesa Reynolds or call +44(0)1273 099622.

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: 17 March 2021

Submission Deadline for Special Sessions: 27 January 2021

Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE): 33rd annual conference on "After Covid? Critical Conjunctures and Contingent Pathways of Contemporary Capitalism" (Amsterdam, July 2021)

3-5 July 2021 | Amsterdam, Netherlands/online

"After Covid? Critical Conjunctures and Contingent Pathways of Contemporary Capitalism"

The Covid-19 pandemic challenges all kinds of taken-for-granted assumptions, within and between contemporary capitalist societies. Not only is the Covid-19 pandemic predicted by the IMF to lead to the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression, likely to overshadow the recession following the financial crisis of 2008. The pandemic has also disrupted and overturned deep-seated practices in our everyday life worlds; it has shaken long-established ways of organizing in companies, industries and global supply chains; and it has provoked a questioning of established growth models and sparked a return of the state, at least in some parts of the world. One might even argue that the “less is more” logic of social distancing and stay-at-home policy, together with the high uncertainty about future development, is threatening ideational core beliefs of neoliberal capitalism, ranging from global free movement, free play of markets, and unlimited exploitation of nature, together with the imaginaries and expectations built on them.

At the same time, the pandemic has exposed the fact that contemporary societies are always as vulnerable as their most vulnerable groups. While the socio-economic impact of the pandemic varies from country to country, it has struck the weakest groups disproportionately and is likely to increase poverty and inequality within countries and at a global scale. Not only have people of color and slum dwellers been exposed to higher rates of infection and death; in many societies, workers in essential services such as care, retail, transport and others, belong to the weakest, often discriminated groups with low incomes and feeble or no social protection. But the pandemic has also made visible the mutual interdependence, obligations and need for recognition between members of societies, generating broad societal resonance for the protests of the most vulnerable against long-enshrined inequalities, discrimination and racism.

On these grounds, the Covid-19 pandemic represents a critical conjuncture of historical dimensions, which demands scholarly investigation of its causes, dynamics and consequences. While we have some knowledge of how the pandemic came about and who is immediately affected by it, we still know little about the broader pathways that may lead out of the crisis. Are we witnessing a series of events at the confluence of structural forces that limit future possibilities and shape future action? Or are we in the midst of a historical opening of possibilities for far-reaching transformation and change in which collective expressions of everyday life experiences and social mobilization within and across groups will foster creative organizational and technological breakthroughs, generate significant policy change or even push (varieties of) capitalism onto a different, and perhaps more sustainable pathway of socio-economic development? Comparing the current conjuncture with previous ones, such as the Spanish flu, the great depression or the global financial crisis, also raises questions about the depths of its effects. Will the organization of work and family life, patterns of production and consumption, regimes of discrimination and recognition, environmental footprints, and global division of labor just snap back once Covid-19 has been overcome? Or will the pandemic have set in motion processes of gradual but transformative change at the level of the economy, group and inter- group relations, forms of organization, institutional configurations, and national and global policy?

Because the pandemic has cut so broadly and drastically into everyday practices, its analysis calls for scholarly inquiry into the intersection and reciprocal influence of different levels of experience and action that have often been considered in isolation: individual and collective life worlds; social mobilization and inter-group relations; organizational and network dynamics; and the evolution of national, sectoral, and global institutions. For example, how have the redrawing of boundaries between work and family life, or the experience of suddenly being recognized as an “essential” occupation, shaped the way in which people collectively think about possible change, and if so, how does this translate into organizational, institutional and policy transformations? How has the pandemic refracted and amplified the resonance of longstanding protest movements, such as Black Lives Matter, and through which channels and with what consequences is this enhanced resonance feeding back into institutional and policy change?

The SASE conference to be held on 3-5 July 2021, will feature as usual papers on all issues of concern for socio-economics. But we especially welcome contributions that explore the ways in which the pandemic challenges key features of contemporary capitalist societies; the variety of pathways of socio-economic development emerging from the crisis; and the multidimensional, cross-cutting patterns of transformation or restoration resulting from critical conjunctures, past and present. SASE’s current members are uniquely positioned to offer a broad range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives on these themes, but we hope to also attract new scholars to join our conversation.

There are two possible formats to participate at SASE conference: Research Networks and Mini-Conferences. Research networks provide a stable spine of research at the SASE conference. Proposals to establish new networks will normally have been tested by having successfully run two subsequent mini-conferences at SASE. Each mini-conference will consist of 3 to 6 panels, which will be featured as a separate stream in the program. Both, Research Networks and Mini-Conferences welcome 2 types of submission:

Please find more information about the details for selected research networks and mini-conferences below.

SASE 2021 Mini-Conference: The Political Economy of Financial Subordination

3-5 July, Amsterdam (may be changed to hybrid or virtual according to circumstances)

Organizers: Bruno Bonizzi (University of Hertfordshire), Annina Kaltenbrunner (University of Leeds), Kai Koddenbrock (University of Frankfurt), Ingrid Kvangraven (University of York), Jeff Powell (University of Greenwich)

Heterodox economists and political economists have long pointed to the structural subordination of developing economies in the global economy. One way in which this subordination is particularly manifest is in its monetary and financial dimension. That governments in Argentina, Ghana and Turkey are running into debt and currency problems might not just be a matter of domestic governance but might be the result of a more systemic problem. To say that the global monetary and financial system is a hierarchical system is to point to the relations of power, dependency, and violence that are the flipside of monetary and financial relations between creditors and debtors. So far, the literature has largely focused on developing economies’ monetary subordination and investigated broad structural and macroeconomics processes, with particular emphasis on moments of crises and extreme volatility. We still know very little about the specific, every-day financial relations, practices and mechanisms which reflect developing economies’ subordinate financial integration and distinctly shape the behaviour of economic agents in these countries. Economic geographers and sociologists have presented excellent work on the spatially and socially variegated financial practices, but place limited attention to the macroeconomic, monetary, and political structures underlying them. This mini-conference brings together the concerns with both macro-structure and agency to conceptualise their interaction in structured global financial markets.

Supplementing this general line of questioning, we particularly welcome contributions that explore the following issues:

Submission details

For more help with the submission process visit the website. For more general information related to the conference visit the conference website.

Submission Deadline: 16 January 2021

Women, Gender & Research: Special Issue on "Sexualities and Critiques on Capital"

Women, Gender & Research is an interdisciplinary journal on gender research in the fields of culture, society, nature, health, and technology. Submissions to the Special Issue on "Sexualities and Critiques on Capital" are now open.

Emphasis on the political significance of sexuality presents one of the most important feminist contributions to critiques of global capitalism. While the relation between the economic and the cultural/non-economic, and between redistribution and recognition continues to be subject of debate, there is a general consensus that sexualities and sexual politics are both foundational to and shaped by the capitalist mode of production and accumulation, as well as the changing relations of labor and formations of statehood. For example, it has been argued that the contingent inclusion of particular sexual minority identities in nationalist narratives and imaginaries feeds into the neoliberal logic of “privatization and personal responsibility” on the one hand, and the figure of the exceptional and civilized nation-state on the other hand. Moreover, the restructured relation between capital and labor through the logic of financialization, has been said to form what Lisa Adkins and Maryanne Dever call the “post-Fordist sexual contract”, which instead of separating production and reproduction “places the ideals of intensive mothering, domesticity, entrepreneurialism and an investor spirit towards work and working on the same continuous plane” (Adkins 2016, 3).

In the face of economic and ecological crisis, intensified political tensions and exacerbated socio-economic inequalities that are materialised through deeply gendered, sexualized, racialised and classed lines, we are witnessing an increased interest in thinking through issues pertaining to sexualities, bodies and desires as central to understanding and critiquing contemporary capitalism. Such work is often inter-disciplinary, or post-disciplinary, and brings together critical and creative insights from scholarly fields such as feminist post-/socialist theory, decolonial anti-capitalism, eco-socialist literature, anti-racist theory and queer and trans Marxisms. Another significant source of inspiration for this strand of work is the ongoing dialogue and collaboration with feminist anti-capitalist and anti-racist grassroots movements and activisms within and beyond academia.

This special issue provides a platform for critical analysis and debates that shed light on the complex and often contradictory ways through which sexualities and capital are related to, shaped by, and constitutive of each other. It invites contributions that concern how the changing mechanisms of capital accumulation and the restructuring of labour in post-Fordist capitalism shape sexualities and sexual politics, as well as how sexual oppression under capitalism foments critiques of domination and communities of resistance. We encourage contributors to engage in critical dialogue but also disagreements about sexual politics as fundamental technologies of power within capitalism.

We welcome contributions targeting these and related themes. Of special interest are contributions that engage with issues of sexuality and capital in the Nordic context and/or that highlight linkages and debates between activist and academic work. Most notably we encourage interdisciplinary projects to unpack the following and related topics that are often boundary transgressing in nature:

Abstracts (max 500 words + author bio of ca 100 words) shoud be submitted to wgr.sexualitiescapital@gmail.com.

All contributions must be in English. Questions about the call for papers, guidelines or submission process should be sent to: wgr.sexualitiescapital@gmail.com. For more information about the journal Women, Gender & Research, as well as contributor guidelines, visit the official website.

Submission Deadline: 1 February 2021

Job Postings

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA

Job title: Assistant Professor of Political Science (Politics & Political Economy of China)

We seek applicants who are dedicated to serving The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s diverse student body as a Assistant Professor of Political Science beginning in the 2021-2022 academic year. The department is particularly interested in applicants with a critical research agenda, including but not limited to the Chinese state and political economy (e.g., industrial policy, trade policy, labor relations), contemporary Chinese government and politics, China and the world system, or China and globalization. This position continues the department’s effort to build an undergraduate and graduate program with courses anchored in the concepts and methods of political science, but that simultaneously cross disciplinary boundaries to incorporate topics, concepts, and methods utilized by other disciplines. The successful candidate will teach courses on Contemporary Chinese Politics and other upper-division or graduate courses to be designed by the new faculty member. The department maintains a highly flexible teaching schedule that can include online teaching and support from teaching assistants, undergraduate research interns, and online instructional coaches.

For further information and application please visit the website.

Application Deadline: 19 February 2021

Awards

Call for Nominations: HES Distinguished Fellow Award 2021

The History of Economics Society invites nominations for the 2021 Distinguished Fellow Award. Each year the HES bestows the honour of "Distinguished Fellow" on a scholar who has made important contributions through a lifetime of study in the history of economic thought. Anyone is eligible to nominate a candidate for this award. If you'd like to nominate someone, please send to Evelyn Forget (committee chair):

Please send the nomination package to: Evelyn Forget

Application Deadline: 15 January 2021

Call for Nominations: Joseph Dorfman Best Dissertation Prize

The History of Economics Society is now accepting nominations for the Joseph Dorfman Best Dissertation Prize.

In 1990, the Society established an annual award for the best dissertation in the history of economic thought and methodology in memory of Joseph Dorfman. Historian of economics and Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economics Society, Joseph Dorfman’s family endowed a permanent fund for this prize.

This year, the winner will receive a stipend of $500 plus travel expenses up to $1,000 to attend the annual conference of the History of Economics Society. All dissertations in the history of economic thought and economic methodology, written in English and completed during the last two years (September 2018 to August 2020), are eligible. The selection committee will consider all nominated dissertations, with self-nominations permitted.

The selection committee is formed this year by:

To nominate a dissertation, please send an email notification to the Chair (Paul Erickson, perickson@wesleyan.edu) together with a .pdf copy of the dissertation.

Application Deadline: 31 January 2021

Call for Nominations: The 2021 Jörg Huffschmid Award

In memory of the scholarly work and political engagement of the critical economist Jörg Huffschmid, we are issuing this call for submissions to the competitive award named after him, which seeks to recognize outstanding work in the field of Political Economy; the Jörg Huffschmid Award is currently in its sixth iteration. It aims to encourage young scholars, in particular, to continue the tradition of critical thought which Jörg represented so outstandingly.

Jörg Huffschmid, who passed away in December 2009 at the age of 69, combined astute analyses with a critique of capitalism and political reason in his work. As one of the founders of the Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, the EuroMemo Group and a member of the scientific advisory board of Attac and the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, his personal, political and scholarly life pursued a socially just society, challenging the supposed absence of alternatives suggested by mainstream economics. Accordingly, the four organizations have issued the award together since 2011.

The prize is open to graduating theses at PhD, Magister, Master and Diploma levels. Doctoral theses will be awarded with a prize of 1,500 euros, others with 500 euros. The work should be related to the field of Political Economy, and deal with, for example, the following topics:

Theses are strongly encouraged that apply an approach combining different disciplines, integrating economics with approaches from social and political science.

How to apply

We will consider submissions that have been accepted by a European institution of higher education since April 2019 in German or English. Submissions by employees of one of the four organizations and members of the respective scientific councils will not be considered. Applications are only accepted in electronic form, to be sent to Thomas.Sablowski@rosalux.org.

Please attach the following:

The awards ceremony is planned for November 2021 in Bremen (Germany). Contact and further information: Thomas Sablowski, thomas.sablowski@rosalux.org

Application Deadline: 1 April 2021

Call for Submissions: AIT and AFEE 16th Annual Student Scholars Award Competition

The Association for Institutional Thought (AFIT) is proud to announce its Sixteenth Annual AFIT-AFEE (Association of Evolutionary Economics) Student Scholars Award Competition. This competition seeks to encourage undergraduate and graduate students to pursue research topics in the field of Evolutionary-Institutional Economics, and related heterodox schools of thought such as Social and Solidarity Economics, Post-Colonial Studies, and other pluralist methodologies. As a professional association, AFIT is devoted to encouraging and fostering the development of institutional thought. Extensions and modifications of the foundational contributions of Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Clarence Ayers, John Commons, and Wesley Mitchell; of Karl Polanyi, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, and John Kenneth Galbraith; and of new Evolutionary-Institutional approaches that advance the fields of social sciences and humanities are welcome. Students doing research in this vein are encouraged to submit papers that carry on and further advance Evolutionary-Institutional Economics.

Awards will be given to the top six student papers drawn from the pool of submissions. The top threewinners receive a $300 prize. All winners are then expected to present their research findings during a special session at the 42nd Annual Meeting of AFIT as part of the 63rd annual conference of the Western Social Science Association (WSSA). This conference will be held virtually in April, 2021.

The winners will receive:

In order to be awarded the prize, winning papers must be presented by the student at the special AFIT session. Acknowledgements will be offered at the AFIT Virtual Banquet at the WSSA meetings. To enter into this competition, the person submitting must be identifiable as having student status. Submitted papers should be 15 to 25 pages (4,000-7,000 words) in length, including references and appendices, and must include a title page with the title, author, educational affiliation, and email address.
Required: submit papers electronically, preferably as a .pdf file, to afitcontest@gmail.com
While not required, we request that you also submit an abstract to WSSA. If you have any other questions, please contact Nicola Matthews, the Student Paper Award Competition’s coordinator, to this email address.

Submission Deadline: 29 January 2021

Winner Announcements: AFEE Awards 2021

Please find below the winners of this year's Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) arwards:

Because the AFEE 2021 program will be delivered virtually in conjunction with the ASSA January 3-5 2021, recognition of these award recipients at the Veblen-Commons Luncheon and the AFEE Membership meeting will be done virtually. More information about the dates and times of these events will be posted soon on the ASSA webpage.

Journals

Ecological Economics 181

Roxana Bobulescu, Aneta Fritscheova: Convivial innovation in sustainable communities: Four cases in France

Kei Kabaya: Empirical analysis of associations between health expenditure and forest environments: A case of Japan

Nicolás Blampied: Economic growth, environmental constraints and convergence

Pinar Ertör-Akyazi, Çağlar Akçay: Moral intuitions predict pro-social behaviour in a climate commons game

Joel Methorst, Katrin Rehdanz, Thomas Mueller, Bernd Hansjürgens, Aletta Bonn, Katrin Böhning-Gaese: The importance of species diversity for human well-being in Europe

Nicolas Roux, Thomas Kastner, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl: Does agricultural trade reduce pressure on land ecosystems? Decomposing drivers of the embodied human appropriation of net primary production

Jana Hilsenroth, Kelly A. Grogan, Thomas K. Frazer: Assessing the effects of increasing surface seawater temperature on black pearl production in French Polynesia: A bioeconomic simulation

Chang K. Seung, Do-Hoon Kim, Ju-Hyun Yi, Se-Hyun Song: Wage distortion and green technological progress: A directed technological progress perspective

Hiroe Ishihara, Kanae Tokunaga, Hirotsugu Uchida: Achieving multiple socio-ecological institutional fits: The case of spiny lobster co-management in Wagu, Japan

Érica Antunes Jimenez, Júlio Guazzelli Gonzalez, Marilu Teixeira Amaral, Flávia Lucena Frédou: Sustainability indicators for the integrated assessment of coastal small-scale fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon

Sandra Baquié, Johannes Urpelainen, Sarika Khanwilkar, Christopher S. Galletti, Nandini Velho, Pinki Mondal, Harini Nagendra, Ruth DeFries: Migration, assets, and forest degradation in a tropical deciduous forest of South Asia

Jiayi Wang, Ping Lei: The tournament of Chinese environmental protection: Strong or weak competition?

Xueliu Xu, Qian Wang, Chenyang Ran, Mingjie Mu: Is burden responsibility more effective? A value-added method for tracing worldwide carbon emissions

Emma Pleeging, Job van Exel, Martijn J. Burger, Spyridon Stavropoulos: Hope for the future and willingness to pay for sustainable energy

Mauricio Quintero-Angel, Ashley Coles, Andrés A. Duque-Nivia: A historical perspective of landscape appropriation and land use transitions in the Colombian South Pacific

Christa Brunnschweiler, Ishmael Edjekumhene, Päivi Lujala: Does information matter? Transparency and demand for accountability in Ghana's natural resource revenue management

Jens V. Hoff, Martin M.B. Rasmussen, Peter Birch Sørensen: Barriers and opportunities in developing and implementing a Green GDP

Nattavudh Powdthavee: Education and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours: A nonparametric regression discontinuity analysis of a major schooling reform in England and Wales

Rafael De Oliveira Silva, Oscar Cortes Gardyn, Sipke-Joost Hiemstra, Joao G. Oliveira Marques, Michèle Tixier-Boichard, Dominic Moran: Rationalizing ex situ collection of reproductive materials for endangered livestock breed conservation

Steven King, Jesse R. O'Hanley, Iain Fraser: How to choose? A bioeconomic model for optimizing river barrier mitigation actions

Steve J. Sinclair, Otgonsuren Avirmed, Matthew D. White, Khorloo Batpurev, Peter A. Griffioen, Canran Liu, Sergelenkhuu Jambal, Hayley Sime, Kirk A. Olson: Rangeland condition assessment in the Gobi Desert: A quantitative approach that places stakeholder evaluations front and Centre

N. Befort: The promises of drop-in vs. functional innovations: The case of bioplastics

Economic Thought 9 (2)

Jorge L. Andere, Jorge Luis Canché-Escamilla, Álvaro Cano-Escalante: Consensus and Dissention among Economic Science Academics in Mexico

John F. Tomer: Economics’ Wisdom Deficit and How to Reduce It

Oswin Krüger Ruiza: The Self According to Others: Explaining Social Preferences with Social Approbation

Abderrazak Belabes: What can Economists Learn from Deleuze?

James E. Rowe: Comment on Abderrazak Belabes’ ‘What can Economists Learn from Deleuze?’

Geoffrey Pfeifer: Deleuze among the Economists: A Short Commentary on Abderrazak Belabes’ ‘What can Economists Learn from Deleuze?’

Forum for Social Economics 49 (4)

Franklin G. Mixon Jr.: Introduction to the Symposium on the Economics of Religion

Jean-Paul Carvalho: Sacrifice and Sorting in Clubs

Anthony Gill: The Political Economy of Religious Property Rights

Peter J. Boettke, Joshua C. Hall & Kathleen M. Sheehan: Was Adam Smith Right About Religious Competition?

Robert Shaw Bridges III & Franklin G. Mixon Jr: The Economics of Conversion and Salvation: An Examination of Puritanism’s Halfway Covenant

Raluca Necula & Stefan Mann: The Renaissance of Fasting—Evidence from a Religious Location in Europe

Waseem Khan, Mohammed Jamshed, Sana Fatima & Aruna Dhamija: Determinants of Income Diversification of Farm Households’ in Uttar Pradesh, India

The featured papers for this issue are:

Stefano Solari: Roman Catholicism and the Founding Principles of Liberalism: Liberty and Private Property

Luca Sandonà: Francis’ Economic Thought: His Case for an Inclusive Economy

Historical Materialism 28 (4)

Alberto Toscano: The State of the Pandemic

Geoffrey McCormack and Todd Gordon: Flagging Profitability and the Oil Frontier

Zachary Davis Cuyler: Toward the Target and the Goal: Infrastructure Sabotage and Palestinian Liberation in the Pages of al-Hadaf

Kaan Kangal: Marx’s ‘Bonn Notebooks’ in Context

Alex Fletcher: Labour in a Single Shot: The Deskilling and Mechanisation of Labour in Harun Farocki

Ricardo Noronha: Letters from ‘Glaucos’: The Correspondence of Guy Debord during the Portuguese Revolution

Sean Winkler: The Materialist Dialectic in Boris Hessen’s Newton Papers (1927 and 1931)

Boris Hessen: Materialist Dialectics and Modern Physics

Daniel Burnfin and Oliver Schlaudt: A Commentary after 38 Years – Alfred Sohn-Rethel

Noa Rodman: ‘Traditions of American “Democracy”’ by Fedor Kapelusz

Fedor Kapelusz: Traditions of American ‘Democracy’

Journal of Institutional Economics 17 (1)

Peter Grajzl, Peter Murrell: A machine-learning history of English caselaw and legal ideas prior to the Industrial Revolution I: generating and interpreting the estimates

Daniil Frolov: Blockchain and institutional complexity: an extended institutional approach

Ennio E. Piano, Alexander W. Salter: The fundamental Coase of development: property rights foundations of the effective state

Jordan K. Lofthouse, Virgil Henry Storr: Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies

Veeshan Rayamajhee, Pablo Paniagua: The Ostroms and the contestable nature of goods: beyond taxonomies and toward institutional polycentricity

Jim Rooney, Vijaya Murthy: Institutions, social order and wealth in ancient India

Christopher A. Hartwell, Mateusz Urban: Burning the Rechtsstaat: legal institutions and protection of the rule of law

Carlos Mairoce, Magdalene Silberberger, Joachim Zweynert: Multinational enterprises, political institutions, and violence: a case study from Mozambique

Geoffrey M. Hodgson: On the limits of markets

Jason Brennan, Peter Jaworski: If you can do it for free, there's some way to do it for money

Bas van Bavel: Market dominance and endogenous decline: the contribution of historical analysis

New Political Economy 26 (1)

Ben Clift & Sean McDaniel: Capitalist Convergence? European (dis?)Integration and the Post-crash Restructuring of French and European Capitalisms

Daniel DeRock: Hidden in Plain Sight: Unpaid Household Services and the Politics of GDP Measurement

Troels Krarup: Money and the ‘Level Playing Field’: The Epistemic Problem of European Financial Market Integration

Marlène Benquet & Théo Bourgeron: Building a Centre of Capital Accumulation: A Study of the Institutional Emergence of the French Private Equity Sector (from the Early 1980s to 2017)

Joscha Wullweber: The Politics of Shadow Money: Security Structures, Money Creation and Unconventional Central Banking

Nicola Giocoli: Free From What? Classical Competition and the Early Decades of American Antitrust

Edward Pemberton: Welfare Reform and the Logic of Financial Responsibility: Creating the ‘Value-able’ Subject

Angela Garcia Calvo: State-firm Coordination and Upgrading in Spain's and Korea's ICT Industries

Giorgos Meramveliotakis: The Issue of Efficiency and the Role of State in New Institutional Economics: A Critical Perspective

Rowan Alcock: The Unconscious Countermovement and the Conscious Polanyian Movement: A New Vocabulary for Contemporary Polanyian Scholarship

Changrok Soh & Daniel Connolly: New Frontiers of Profit and Risk: The Fourth Industrial Revolution’s Impact on Business and Human Rights

Ismael Yrigoy: The Political Economy of Rental Housing in Spain: The Dialectics of Exploitation(s) and Regulations

Markus Ojala: Doing Away with the Sovereign: Neoliberalism and the Promotion of Market Discipline in European Economic Governance

Oeconomia 10 (3)

Facts in Energy and Environmental Economics

Guido Erreygers, Marion Gaspard and Antoine Missemer: Facts in Environmental and Energy Economics, Models and Practices, Past and Present: Introduction

Christian Bidard and Guido Erreygers: Exhaustible Resources and Classical Theory Models and Practices, Past and Present: Introduction

Heinz D. Kurz and Neri Salvadori: Fixing a numéraire in the Theory of Exhaustible Resources

Marco P. Vianna Franco: The Factual Nature of Resource Flow Accounting in the Calculation in Kind of the “Other Austrian Economics”
Emmanuel Combet: Planning and Sustainable Development in the Twenty‐first Century

Roberto P. Ferreira da Cunha: Non-Renewable Resource Economics and Geological Constraints: a Review

Miguel Rivière and Sylvain Caurla: Representations of the Forest Sector in Economic Models

Kirsten Sophie Hasberg: Constructing Viking Link: How the Infopower of Cost-benefit Analysis as a Calculative Device Reinforces the Energopower of Transmission Infrastructure

Science & Society 85 (1)

David M. Kutzik and Douglas V. Porpora: Critical Realism and the Varieties of Materialism

Elena Louisa Lange: Gendercraft: Marxism–Feminism, Reproduction, and the Blind Spot of Money

Arpad Kovacs: Cosmography as Cultural Capital: Power Struggle in the Visigothic Kingdom

David Chen: Rethinking Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class: China, the United States, and Twenty-First Century Imperialist Rivalry

Paul Blackledge: Response to Nimtz: Strategy, Tactics and Real Movements from Below

Alexis Ioannides and Stavros Mavroudeas: Work Intensity and Value Formation: Comments on Hernández and Deytha

Alan Wald: The Culture War Over Literary Communism

Social Philosophy and Policy 37 (1)

David Schmidtz: ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

Christopher J. Berry: OUT OF THE COFFEE HOUSE OR HOW POLITICAL ECONOMY PRETENDED TO BE A SCIENCE FROM MONTCHRÉTIEN TO STEUART

Richard Boyd: THE EARLY MODERN ORIGINS OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

Michael B. Gill: SHAFTESBURY ON SELFISHNESS AND PARTISANSHIP

Natalie Gold: TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECONOMICS (AND WHY IT MATTERS WHICH ACCOUNT IS BETTER)

Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap: TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECONOMICS (AND WHY IT MATTERS WHICH ACCOUNT IS BETTER)

Leonidas Montes: THE RELEVANCE OF PROPRIETY AND SELF-COMMAND IN ADAM SMITH’S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS

James A. Harris: THE PROTECTION OF THE RICH AGAINST THE POOR: THE POLITICS OF ADAM SMITH’S POLITICAL ECONOMY

Maria Pia Paganelli: ADAM SMITH AND THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

James R. Otteson: THE LEVELLERS AND THE BIRTH OF LIBERAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

Margaret Schabas: DAVID HUME AS A PROTO-WEBERIAN: COMMERCE, PROTESTANTISM, AND SECULAR CULTURE

Timothy M. Costelloe: “SHINING BITS OF METAL”: MONEY, PROPERTY, AND THE IMAGINATION IN HUME’S POLITICAL ECONOMY

Loren Lomasky: POLITY AND ECONOMY IN PLATO’S REPUBLIC

Books and Book Series

"What is Political Economy?" - Consumption

by Ian Hudson and Mark Hudson | 2020, Polity Books

Consumption used to be a disease. Now it is the dominant manner in which most people meet their most basic needs and – if they can afford the price – their wildest desires.

In this new book, Ian and Mark Hudson critically examine how consumption has been understood in economic theory before analyzing its centrality to our social lives and function in contemporary capitalism. They also outline the consequences it has for people and nature, consequences routinely made invisible in the shopping mall or online catalogue. Hudson and Hudson show, in an approachable manner, how patterns of consumption are influenced by cultures, individual preferences and identity formation before arguing that underlying these determinants is the unavoidable need within capitalism to realize profit.

This accessible and comprehensive book will be essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, economics and economic sociology, as well as any reader who wants to confront their own practices of consumption in a meaningful way.

Please find a link to the book here.

"What is Political Economy?" - Value

by Frederick Harry Pitts | 2020, Polity Books

'Value' seems like an elusive and abstract concept. Nonetheless, notions of value underpin how we understand our lives, from discussions about the economic contribution of different kinds of work and productive activity, to the prices we pay for the things we consume. So what is value, and where does it come from?

In this new book, Frederick Harry Pitts charts the past, present and future of value within and beyond capitalist society, critically engaging with key concepts from classical and neoclassical political economy. Interrogating the processes and practices that attribute value to objects and activities, he considers debates over whether value lies within commodities or in their exchange, the politics of different theories of value, and how we measure value in a knowledge-based economy.

This accessible and intriguing introduction to the complexities of value in modern society will be essential reading for any student or scholar working in political economy, economics, economic sociology or management.

Please find a link to the book here.

A Southern Perspective on Development Studies

by Carlos Mallorquín | 2020, Ariadna Ediciones

This book suggests the importance of examining alternative discourses in the social sciences, in this case economics, beyond western-centric cultural milieu. The account attempts to unveil the existence of a post Second World War economic approach developed in Latin America. The perspective questioned the dominant economic science disseminated within and outside the Anglo-Saxon or Eurocentric countries (western-centric academia) during the 1950´s. Today, after the appalling cataclysms in welfare and equality generated by neoclassical economics, an alternative economics seems order in the Northern and Southern hemisphere. The rebirth of Latin American Structuralism within the developing countries, and the widely publicized names of Raúl Prebisch, Celso Furtado among others, within the western-centric audiences requires an up to date of the vocabulary and concepts. Retrospectively these authors discussed can be examined as the original sources in Latin America among those who developed the basis of decolonial thought. The book problematizes the domestication of Latin American Structuralism in the Northern or Southern hemisphere alike and discusses its potential similarities to Post-Keynesian perspectives related to power asymmetries among countries, firms, and heterogenous agents.

Please find a link to the book here.

China's Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption

by Yuen Yuen Ang | 2020, Cambridge University Press

Why has China grown so fast for so long despite vast corruption? In China's Gilded Age, Yuen Yuen Ang maintains that all corruption is harmful, but not all types of corruption hurt growth. Ang unbundles corruption into four varieties: petty theft, grand theft, speed money, and access money. While the first three types impede growth, access money - elite exchanges of power and profit - cuts both ways: it stimulates investment and growth but produces serious risks for the economy and political system. Since market opening, corruption in China has evolved toward access money. Using a range of data sources, the author explains the evolution of Chinese corruption, how it differs from the West and other developing countries, and how Xi's anti-corruption campaign could affect growth and governance. In this formidable yet accessible book, Ang challenges one-dimensional measures of corruption. By unbundling the problem and adopting a comparative-historical lens, she reveals that the rise of capitalism was not accompanied by the eradication of corruption, but rather by its evolution from thuggery and theft to access money. In doing so, she changes the way we think about corruption and capitalism, not only in China but around the world.

Please find a link to the book here.

Corporate Conservatives Go to War: How the National Association of Manufacturers Planned to Restore American Free Enterprise, 1939–1948

by Charlie Whitham | 2020, Springer

World War II presented a unique opportunity for American business to improve its reputation after years of censure for inflicting the Great Depression upon the nation. No employers’ organization worked harder or devoted greater resources to reviving business prestige during the war than the National Association of Manufacturers, which spent millions of dollars on promoting the indispensability of private enterprise to the successful mobilization of the American economy in an uncompromising multi-media campaign which spanned the factory floor to the movie theatre. Now, using unpublished primary sources, the full extent of the NAM’s wartime mission to raise the stature of American business in the post-war era is revealed. During the war the NAM erected a vast structure of research on an unprecedented scale numbering more than one hundred persons dedicated to planning the best solutions for restoring American ‘free enterprise’ capitalism after the war in a direct challenge to the ‘liberal’ prescriptions of the reigning administration. These studies were painstakingly assembled and widely distributed and served as a complimentary arm to the better-known pro-business propaganda message of the organization. What emerges is a unique and telling glimpse into the minds of the corporate class of wartime America that reveals the determination of a major employers’ organization to exploit the exceptional circumstances of total war to influence both the power-brokers in Washington who wrote economic policy and the American public as a whole to embrace a post-war future ruled by private enterprise capitalism.

Please find a link to the book here.

Crisis and Inequality

by Mattias Vermeiren | 2021, Polity Books

Spiralling inequality since the 1970s and the global financial crisis of 2008 have been the two most important challenges to democratic capitalism since the Great Depression. To understand the political economy of contemporary Europe and America we must, therefore, put inequality and crisis at the heart of the picture.

In this innovative new textbook Mattias Vermeiren does just this, demonstrating that both the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis resulted from a mutually reinforcing but ultimately unsustainable relationship between countries with debt-led and export-led growth models, models fundamentally shaped by soaring income and wealth inequality. He traces the emergence of these two growth models by giving a comprehensive overview, deeply informed by the comparative and international political economy literature, of recent developments in the four key domains that have shaped the dynamics of crisis and inequality: macroeconomic policy, social policy, corporate governance and financial policy. He goes on to assess the prospects for the emergence of a more egalitarian and sustainable form of democratic capitalism.

This fresh and insightful overview of contemporary Western capitalism will be essential reading for all students and scholars of international and comparative political economy.

Please find a link to the book here.

Empire, Political Economy, and the Diffusion of Chocolate in the Atlantic World

by Irene Fattacciu | 2020, Routledge

Chocolate is one of the most visible examples of how a deeply exotic consumer product penetrating our daily lives fascinated Europeans during the Early Modern period. Today, over fifty percent of the four million tons of cocoa produced globally come from Sub-Saharan Africa. Ecuadorian cocoa, on the other hand, is considered premium quality. Yet the fact that Ecuadorian cocoa is preferred by today's artisanal chocolate makers is one of history’s ironic turns. During the eighteenth century, production and exports of Ecuadorian cocoa dramatically expanded due to its fast growth rate, high yield and low price, though certainly not due to its qualities of taste. This book analyzes the transition of chocolate from an exotic curiosity to an Atlantic commodity. It shows how local, inter-regional, and Atlantic markets interacted with one another and with imperial political economies. It explains how these interactions, intertwined with the resilience of local artisanal production, promoted the partial democratization of chocolate consumption as well as economic growth.

Please find a link to the book here.

Humans versus Nature: A Global Environmental History

by Daniel R. Headrick | Oxford University Press, 2020

Since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist, rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes—epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions—have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment—species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion—back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them.

Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.

Please find a link to the book here.

Migration beyond Capitalism

by Hannah Cross | 2020, Polity

Harshly exploited migrant labour plays a fundamental role in the political economy of contemporary capitalism. The abstract and utopian theorising of many liberals and leftists on the migration question often ignores or downplays patterns of displacement and brutal class dynamics, which divide and weaken working people while empowering the ruling class.

In this important new book, Hannah Cross provides a sober analysis of the class antagonisms of migration in the context of the nation, social democracy, and the racialized ordering of the world. Bringing Marxist methodology and strategy to a careful analysis of existing emancipatory movements, she sets out the programmes and approaches that are needed to promote global worker solidarity and create a future in which cheap labour is no longer a mainstay of wealthy economies. This focus on the labouring classes allows her to identify some important new directions for migration in a world beyond capitalism, exploitation and injustice.

This book will be essential reading for students, scholars and general readers interested in the politics and political economy of migration in a world unhelpfully caught between racist authoritarian capitalism and the wishful-thinking of contemporary left-liberalism.

Please find a link to the book here.

Planetary Mine – Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism

by Martín Arboleda | 2020, Verso

Planetary Mine rethinks the politics and territoriality of resource extraction, especially as the mining industry becomes reorganized in the form of logistical networks, and East Asian economies emerge as the new pivot of the capitalist world-system. Through an exploration of the ways in which mines in the Atacama Desert of Chile—the driest in the world—have become intermingled with an expanding constellation of megacities, ports, banks, and factories across East Asia, the book rethinks uneven geographical development in the era of supply chain capitalism. Arguing that extraction entails much more than the mere spatiality of mine shafts and pits, Planetary Mine points towards the expanding webs of infrastructure, of labor, of finance, and of struggle, that drive resource-based industries in the twenty-first century.

Please find alink to the book here.

Raya Dunayevskaya's Intersectional Marxism

edited by Kevin B. Anderson, Kieran Durkin and Heather A. Brown | 2021, Palgrave

Raya Dunayevskaya is one of the twentieth century’s great but underappreciated Marxist and feminist thinkers. Her unique philosophy and practice of Marxist-Humanism—as well as her grasp of Hegelian dialectics and the deep humanism that informs Marx’s thought—has much to teach us today. From her account of state capitalism (part of her socio-economic critique of Stalinism, fascism, and the welfare state), to her writings on Rosa Luxemburg, Black and women’s liberation, and labor, we are offered indispensable resources for navigating the perils of sexism, racism, capitalism, and authoritarianism. This collection of essays, from a diverse group of writers, brings to life Dunayevskaya’s important contributions. Revisiting her rich legacy, the contributors to this volume engage with her resolute Marxist-Humanist focus and her penetrating dialectics of liberation that is connected to Black, labor, and women’s liberation and to struggles over alienation and exploitation the world over. Dunayevskaya’s Marxist-Humanism is recovered for the twenty-first century and turned, as it was with Dunayevskaya herself, to face the multiple alienations and de-humanizations of social life.

Please find a link to the book here.

Tea War – A History of Capitalism in China and India

by Andrew B. Liu | 2020, Yale University Press

Tea remains the world’s most popular commercial drink today, and at the turn of the twentieth century, it represented the largest export industry of both China and colonial India. In analyzing the global competition between Chinese and Indian tea, Andrew B. Liu challenges past economic histories premised on the technical “divergence” between the West and the Rest, arguing instead that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capital accumulation across Asia. He shows how competitive pressures compelled Chinese merchants to adopt abstract industrial conceptions of time, while colonial planters in India pushed for labor indenture laws to support factory-style tea plantations. Characterizations of China and India as premodern backwaters, he explains, were themselves the historical result of new notions of political economy adopted by Chinese and Indian nationalists, who discovered that these abstract ideas corresponded to concrete social changes in their local surroundings. Together, these stories point toward a more flexible and globally oriented conceptualization of the history of capitalism in China and India.

Please find a link to the book here.

The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion – Mobile Money, Gendered Walls

by Serena Natile | 2020, Routledge

Focusing on Kenya’s path-breaking mobile money project M-Pesa, this book examines and critiques the narratives and institutions of digital financial inclusion as a development strategy for gender equality, arguing for a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects.

One of the most-discussed digital financial inclusion projects, M-Pesa facilitates the transfer of money and access to formal financial services via the mobile phone infrastructure and has grown at a phenomenal rate since its launch in 2007 to reach about 80 per cent of the Kenyan population. Through a socio-legal enquiry drawing on feminist political economy, law and development scholarship and postcolonial feminist debate, this book unravels the narratives and institutional arrangements that frame M-Pesa’s success while interrogating the relationship between digital financial inclusion and gender equality in development discourse. Natile argues that M-Pesa is premised on and regulated according to a logic of opportunity rather than a politics of redistribution, favouring the expansion of the mobile money market in preference to contributing to substantive gender equality via a redistribution of the revenue and funding deriving from its development.

This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students in Global Political Economy, Socio-Legal Studies, Gender Studies, Law & Development, Finance and International Relations.

Please find a link to the book here.

The New Environmental Economics Sustainability and Justice

by Eloi Laurent | 2021, Polity Books

Too often, economics disassociates humans from nature, the economy from the biosphere that contains it, and sustainability from fairness. When economists do engage with environmental issues, they typically reduce their analysis to a science of efficiency that leaves aside issues of distributional analysis and justice.

The aim of this lucid textbook is to provide a framework that prioritizes human well-being within the limits of the biosphere, and to rethink economic analysis and policy in the light of not just efficiency but equity. Leading economist Éloi Laurent systematically ties together sustainability and justice issues in covering a wide range of topics, from biodiversity and ecosystems, energy and climate change, environmental health and environmental justice, to new indicators of well-being and sustainability beyond GDP and growth, social-ecological transition, and sustainable urban systems.

This book equips readers with ideas and tools from various disciplines alongside economics, such as history, political science, and philosophy, and invites them to apply those insights in order to understand and eventually tackle pressing twenty-first-century challenges. It will be an invaluable resource for students of environmental economics and policy, and sustainable development.

Please find a link to the book here.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks

edited by Ryan Light and James Moody | 2021, Oxford University Press

While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research.

In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered forty leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science, among others, to provide an overview of the theory, methods, and contributions in the field of social networks. Each of the thirty-three chapters in this Handbook moves through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. They cover both a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks. The first section of the volume consists of theoretical and methodological approaches to social networks, such as visualization and network analysis, statistical approaches to networks, and network dynamics. Chapters in the second section outline how network perspectives have contributed substantively across numerous fields, including public health, political analysis, and organizational studies.

Despite the rapid spread of interest in social network analysis, few volumes capture the state-of-the-art theory, methods, and substantive contributions featured in this volume. This Handbook therefore offers a valuable resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.

Please find a link to the book here.

The Political Economy of Inequality

by Frank Stilwell | 2019, Polity Books

During the last few decades, the gap between the incomes, wealth and living standards of rich and poor people has increased in most countries. Economic inequality has become a defining issue of our age.

In this book, leading political economist Frank Stilwell provides a comprehensive overview of the nature, causes, and consequences of this growing divide. He shows how we can understand inequalities of wealth and incomes, globally and nationally, examines the scale of the problem and explains how it affects our wellbeing. He also shows that, although governments are often committed to ‘growth at all costs’ and ‘trickle down’ economics, there are alternative public policies that could be used to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Stilwell’s engaging and clear guide to the issues will be indispensable reading for all students, general readers and scholars interested in inequality in political economy, economics, public policy and beyond.

Please find a link to the book here.

The SCOPUS Diaries and the (il)logics of Academic Survival

by Abel Polese | 2019, ibidem Press

Now that academics are required to be teachers, managers, media catalyzers, analysts, fundraisers, and social media animals: How do you strike a good balance between what is expected from you and what you want to do? What conferences to attend? How to find the money to go there? Is it worth it to act as a peer reviewer? What publishers are best to target? Is publishing a chapter in an edited book worth the work?

This book is intended to help scholars to design and think strategically about their own career. Beginning with “How to get published in good journals,” it explores a number of questions that most academics encounter at various stages of their careers.

Please find a link to the (open access) e-book here or order a paperback copy here.

Urban Displacements: Governing Surplus and Survival in Global Capitalism

by Susanne Soederberg | 2021, Routledge

With an eye to further our understanding of everyday life in global capitalism, Urban Displacements provides the first systemic critical political economy analysis of low-income rental housing and social dislocations, combining both theoretical advancements and detailed empirical studies, centering on Berlin, Dublin and Vienna.

Soederberg pushes beyond dominant debates by treating low-rent housing as a unique commodity that provides a necessary place for the societal reproduction of labour power whilst being integrated into the global dynamics of capitalism. She argues that historical and geographical configurations of monetized governance, including landlords, employers and inter-scalar state practices, have served to reproduce urban displacements and obfuscate their gendered, class and racialized underpinnings. The outcome is the everyday facilitation and normalization of urban poverty and social marginalization on one side, and capital accumulation on the other.

Building on Soederberg’s previous book Debtfare States and the Poverty Industry, this accessible and interdisciplinary text will be useful to academics and students in political science, sociology, geography, urban studies, labour studies, European studies and gender studies.

Please find a link to the book here.

Heterodox Graduate Programs, Scholarships and Grants

Call for Applications: Economic POlicies for the Global transition (EPOG+) master's programme

Economic POlicies for the Global transition (EPOG+) is an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in economics, supported by the European Union. It offers a world-class integrated Master's programme on the (digital, socioeconomic, ecological) transition processes with a pluralist approach and interdisciplinary perspectives.

The main objective of the programme is to give birth to a new generation of international experts, able to define and assess economic policies and evolve within different political, social and regional contexts. Towards this objective, the EPOG+ Master’s programme goes beyond the reach of standard economic theory to include various heterodox/institutionnalist political economy approaches.

The full partners (degree awarding institutions) include a wide set of prestigous institutions:

It also involves more than 30 (academic and non-academic) associated partners in Europe and the world.

Scholarships

The very best students from all over the world will be eligible for scholarships awarded for 2 years by the European Commission, based on our selection:

More details here.

When to apply?

Note that two recommendation letters are needed to apply and have to be provided by the deadline. The course for the new cohort will start in September 2021. For more information please visit the offical website.

Application deadline: 1 February 2021 (12:00 Paris time)

Call for Applications: The International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy doctoral program

The International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) is a unique international three-and-a-half-year doctoral program in the fields of economic sociology, political economy, and organization studies that is offered jointly by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), the University of Cologne's Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

As Germany’s first graduate program in economic sociology and political economy, the IMPRS-SPCE welcomes outstanding doctoral students of political science, sociology, and organization studies from Germany and abroad. Research at the School explores the social and political foundations of modern economies and examines the interrelation between economic and social action. It combines approaches from economic sociology, comparative and international political economy, and organizational sociology.

The School’s students, German and international, benefit from the opportunity to contribute actively to the intellectual life of the MPIfG and its two partner universities in Germany. They also have the possibility to spend time at IMPRS-SPCE partner institutions abroad, where they can meet leading scholars in their fields. Students may also earn a French doctorate by entering the joint doctoral program (cotutelle de thèse) with Sciences Po in Paris. With these opportunities and its unique curriculum of seminars, colloquia, and summer schools, the IMPRS-SPCE offers students an environment in which they can build essential professional skills and make the best possible start to a research career.

How to apply

The IMPRS-SPCE admits up to eight students a year. They must have a proven record of academic excellence and hold a master's degree or equivalent in a discipline relevant to the School's research. The ability to do scholarly work in English is a prerequisite for admission. Applications are accepted from mid-December to late February. We welcome students from Germany and abroad.

We look forward to receiving your online application. It should be submitted in English. Applications by email cannot be considered. For further information on the program and how to apply, please visit the official website.

Application Deadline: 28 February 2021

Calls for Support

Democratizing Work – Express your support & view past achievements

The DemocratizingWork initiative is the result of a collective endeavor launched in May 2020 by three scholars: Isabelle Ferreras, Dominique Méda, and Julie Battilana. The three share an abiding interest in democratic and sustainable ways of working and organizing that diverge from the model of shareholder value maximization. The initiative came from a hope to help in the unfolding crisis – in health, climate, the economy, and political life – that we are facing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cooperating distantly, as is the new norm, the three scholars sat down to draft an op-ed together about what we are learning from this pandemic around the specific issue of work. Their goal was to name – clearly and urgently – the core lesson they saw emerging: it is time to democratize firms, decommodify work, and remediate the environment.

You can support them by signing their petition online. Furthermore they also published a statement about their achievements in 2020:

What we achieved together in 2020

The past year has been a rough journey. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the extent to which our economic structures are inadequate and unjust, disproportionately harming the most vulnerable – and the most vulnerable workers – among us, and among racialized communities in particular. In just 15 days, what started as an op-ed written for 1 journal became a global manifesto signed by more than 6,000 scholars and organizers, published in 43 media outlets on the 5 continents, in more than 25 languages – and counting. We felt great responsibility for continuing spread the message the manifesto conveyed, and with your support, have tried to seek out the best ways to be true to its urgency. So much has happened since our last call in early October, and we wanted to take the opportunity to update you about what we have been doing.

Successful book release in French with Les Éditions du Seuil

We have been humbled by the success of the release of Le Manifeste Travail, the book we pulled together around the initial manifesto, which was released in early October. Made up of 12 chapters written by the 12 female scholars of the core group, it has received a great deal of attention from major French-speaking press outlets, including Le Monde, Libération, Radio Canada, La Croix, France Culture Radio. Many events introducing the book were held in the weeks following its publication, including in the Netherlands, the US, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada, France, as well as global events at the European Trade Union Institute, the International Labor Organization, and the United Nations (panel starts at 1hr40min mark) where the book was discussed. You can catch up on all the news and events relating to the release on the #DemocratizingWork media page.

All of this has helped to disseminate our Manifesto’s 3 principles – democratize firms, decommodify labor, and remediate the planet – beyond our expectations. None of it would have been possible without the support of our editor at Le Seuil, Séverine Nikel, and her amazing team. As you know, all author's royalties will be donated to further funding the operations of #DemocratizingWork.

University of Chicago Press & Portuguese versions of the book forthcoming

ENGLISH: Outstanding writer Miranda Richmond Mouillot helped us edit our manuscript for an English-speaking audience, and we are very excited to report that we have just accepted an offer from the University of Chicago Press. We are so excited that the message of the Manifesto will be released by such a prestigious press, and even more so because it is the very university press that published and promoted the work of Milton Friedman and amplified neoliberal thought over the world. We can only hope that this is one signal of a profound shift in academia, as well as in real-world politics. The book’s release is scheduled for Winter/Spring 2022. We will of course keep you posted on these developments.

PORTUGUESE: Flavia Maximo and Ana Virginia Gomez have secured a deal for an exciting, augmented version of the book with Lumen Juris (Rio de Janeiro). In addition to the 12 chapters of the French version translated into Portuguese, this book will feature additional chapters commissioned from Portuguese-speaking scholars, so that the Manifesto can be placed in the context of specific societal concerns, in this way giving it greater relevance and impact. Thanks to a grant provided by the Brazilian FUNCAP Foundation, the e-book will be downloadable for free as early as next month (January 2021). We look forward seeing how the debate unfolds in Brazil and beyond! Publication in other languages is underway, as well: we are close to a deal for the Italian version and the Indonesian version of the book. Currently, Spanish, Greek, and German versions also are in the pipeline.

Important news feature to nurture our network

We have set up a new page that help us to share news related to our collective endeavor: as you know, our vision is for a network that is as horizontal as possible. This means you can report these initiatives yourselves, a feature designed to enable the movement as a whole to spread this kind of information as easily and efficiently as possible.

There is also a new Our Network section – under construction – on the website where readers can discover new articles and books related to the manifesto and its principles, such as Jerry Davis’ piece, “Corporate Purpose Needs Democracy”, in the Journal of Management Studies, or Hélène Landemore’s new book, Open Democracy. You will also find listings of events taking place in the near future, such as the Real Utopia Conference on Democratizing the Corporation with Isabelle Ferreras, or Lisa Herzog’s WiKo/Marc Bloch Berlin Summer School. Additionally, important actions connected to #DemocratizingWork will be suggested here, such as an initiative led by Julia Cagé to Democratize the news media: please consider joining.

Share

If you feel like helping the Manifesto make an impact one last time this year, please consider this simple action: choose one entry in the languages of your choice on the ManifesteTravail media page and share it, voicing your gratitude to essential workers in 2020 as well as the urgency of #DemocratizingWork.

Feel free to tag the co-authors of the #ManifesteTravail so we can engage with your posts (@Ferreras_Isa, @Julie_Battilana, @AdelleBlackett, @CageJulia, @LafuenteSara, @landemore, @imgekayasabanci, @ptcherneva, @ChandhokeNeera)

There’s a lot to come in 2021! As the current global crisis deepens, the problems we face will require more from us. We will be in touch about the #DemocratizingWork regional and global Conference to be held in 2021, and the #DemocratizingWork University Course Syllabus initiative. We hope that you will further engage with these developments, and will continue to invite people and organizations to sign on to it.

We close this message by saying how utterly grateful we are to each and every one of you, including our amazing team of volunteers, for your continuing support in spreading the 3 principles of the Manifesto. Together, we can achieve so much!

For Your Information

ASE Statement on the recent assault on the Capitol Building

Colleagues and friends,

Feeling the weight of this moment, we write to you today as the leadership team of the Association for Social Economics to comment on the recent assault on the US Capitol building. It is time for clear talk.

This insurrection and act of terror inspired by the president and his enablers, along with the inadequate preparation and response, laid bare the vivid racism that defines US society. This racism is especially stark when juxtaposed with the public response to the legitimate outrage and Black Lives Matter protests of the unlawful shootings and killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, Ahmaud Arbery, and more. It is even more stark when we consider that in 2013, a young black woman, Miriam Carey, was shot and killed by the Capitol police for merely making a U-turn at a checkpoint on the Capitol grounds.

We as economists and social scientists are well positioned to use our craft and talents to investigate the incentives and disincentives to weaponization of the police and whole security apparatus in the immoral devaluation of human beings on the basis of something as cursory as a social identity like race. Moreover, we have an obligation to use our talents to craft policy and alternative structures that rightly use the institutions of government to reckon with our past and present, and plot pathways forward that ensure we all have our basic needs met and can live with dignity and economic security.

In solidarity with those who have suffered at the hands of the police, who have been persistently marginalized in our economies and societies, and those who deeply desire to commit to a society with economic inclusion for everyone,

Stephanie Seguino, President
Paul Makdissi, President-Elect
Darrick Hamilton, Vice President
Chris Jeffords, Executive Secretary
Christine Ngo, Treasurer
Veronika Dolar, Program Secretary