Competitiveness, crisis & political authority in a changing global order
Leeds Metropolitan University and Gediz University
Annual IPE Conference:
Competitiveness, crisis and political authority in a changing global Order
July 10th-11th 2014, Leeds Metropolitan University
Booking link: https://ipe2014.eventbrite.co.uk PLACES ARE FREE BUT LIMITED
Schedule
10th July
09.30 – 10.00 Welcome and coffee
10.00 – 12.00 Panel 1: Crisis, ideas and real world economics
12.00 – 13.00 Keynote – Phil Cerny: The competition state and transnational Neo-Pluralism
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 16.00 Panel 2: Competitiveness, scale and geo-political shift
11th July
09.30 – 10.00 Welcome and coffee
10.00 – 12.30 Panel 3: Crisis, competitiveness, and distribution of benefits: regulating inter- and intra-regional governance
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30 – 15.30 Panel 5: Popular Resistance and Vested Interests
Panels and papers
Panel 1: Crisis, ideas and real world economics (Jamie Morgan to convene and Chair) J.A.Morgan@leedsmet.ac.uk
Since the onset of the 2008 crisis the economics profession has been rocked by the failure of mainstream ideas to either predict or cope with the crisis. More recently this has led to a questioning of economics curricular among students themselves. This panel will consider the crisis of ideas engulfing mainstream economics and make the case for heterodox and ‘real world’ economics.
Marco Boffi (Leeds), Historical immaterialism: from immaterial labour to cognitive capitalism
Marco Passarella (Leeds), Whither basic income in a monetary circuit frame? A sympathetic but critical appraisal
Ozan Ucuk (Gediz): Behavioural and experimental alternatives in pluralist teaching of economics
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Key note speaker confirmed: Prof. Phil Cerny: The Competition State and Trans-national Neo-Pluralism
Globalisation involves a range of structural changes, leading to a “branching point” in world politics. The “inter-national” or interstate system is being gradually overlain, undermined and crosscut by transnational and multi-nodal webs of power that alter the ways politics is carried on and policy is made and implemented. Driving these changes are the shifting composition and priorities of diverse sets of actors and groups, from material interest groups, to “value groups” and social movements, to “transgovernmental networks” — what I have called “transnational neopluralism”. At the same time, however, significant infrastructural shifts both result from and shape these embryonic political processes in dialectical fashion. The main foci of research on such infrastructural changes have been on economic variables such as financial markets, multinational corporations, international production changes, and information and communications technology, on the one hand, and on international regimes and “global governance”, on the other. One of the central and most controversial infrastructural variables, however, at the crossroads of the political and economic, has been the “Competition State”, torn between the legacy of the 20th century industrial welfare state and the increasingly dominant imperative to promote the international competitiveness and “structural adjustment” of domestic economic sectors and activities. The result is an ongoing political — and social — tension between regulating and/or deregulating economic activities, dealing with growing inequalities and “compensating losers”, putting together more complex political coalitions cutting across the traditional categories of left and right, and restructuring the state itself in a world of complex interdependence. The state is thus at a crossroads of a process of “structuration”, the outcome of which is uncertain, although several alternative scenarios can be envisaged.
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Panel 2: Competitiveness, scale and geo-political shift (Alex Nunn to convene and Chair) a.nunn@leedsmet.ac.uk
The panel will consider the role of the space, scale and the geo-political shift underway in the global political economy. Papers will look at the production of space, the role of inter-scalar analysis and geo-political shift
Stuart Shields (Manchester) Bringing the region back in? The EBRD and the rescaling of post-communist transition
Quintin Bradley (Leeds Met), Bringing Democracy Back Home: Community Localism and the domestication of political Space
Assel Rustemova (Gediz): The Great Convergence and Its Meaning for Global Politics
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Panel 3: Crisis, competitiveness, and distribution of benefits: regulating inter- and intra-regional governance (Assel Rustemova assel.rustemova@gediz.edu.tr and Gaye Gungor gaye.gungor@gediz.edu.trto Convene and Chair)
This panel aims to address different strategies of building competitiveness during and after the crises by evaluating the debate of austerity vs growth and the role of small informal international groups of experts as the key decision-makers in this process. The key puzzle that this panel will examine is why despite political differences, both authoritarian and democratic governments across the world have shared similar policies of addressing the aftermath of financial crises in their countries. Another part of our panel explores the question of how can we conceptualize regulation? Thinking about regulation in a more comprehensive way, as regulatory governance, help us move beyond a narrow understanding of regulatory policy as market regulation. A broader understanding of regulation also leads us to ask who benefits from it and to what extent.
Suat Öksüz (Gediz), A Case of Wider Regional Integration, FTAs, and Competition: ASEAN + Plus Three
Gaye Güngör (Gediz), The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism
Firat Cengiz (Liverpool), Network Governance in Post-Financial Crisis Europe: What Impact on Legitimacy?
Charlie Dannreuther (Leeds), Economies of Scope – explaining liberal authority and its consequences in the Eurozone
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Panel 4: Popular Resistance and Vested Interests (Mark Langan to convene and Chair) M.Langan@leedsmet.ac.uk
The last few years have seen widespread protest movements against the imposition of austerity, for greater democratic accountability and against inequality in societies as diverse as the UK, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Brazil and across the Middle East. This panel will consider the role and significance of protest and resistance in the context of crisis and geo-political shift.
Joseph Ibrahim (Leeds Met), Protest, Occupy and the 99% vs the 1%
Bob Jessop (Sheffield Hallam), Gated Communities and Rioting in the UK
Robin Redhead (Leeds Met), Protest and aboriginal rights in Canada
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