Geneva report

Dear all,

The Critical Political Research Network sessions at the 10th European Sociological Association conference took place from 8-10 September 2011, and were a great success. Based on the theme ‘Varieties of capitalism in crisis?’, our panels attracted an average of 20-25 people per panel, and generated discussions that ranged across different parts of the conference. In addition, the composition of the presenters was the broadest yet, with 16 countries represented, and there was a very healthy range of presenters, from MA level up to Professor.Thanks very much to the contributors and participants at the ESA conference: it seemed to go very well, and we were especially pleased with the interest our panels generated – in terms of both the size of the audience and the questions and conversations that the presentations provoked.

For those of you who were unable to attend this meeting, our next event will be hosted by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, hopefully in autumn 2012. The dates are not fixed, though, and again we will send messages to the CPERN mailing list once this has been resolved. Secondly, we had an excellent discussion regarding the possible theme of the UPF conference. A consensus seemed to form around foregrounding the ‘critical’ in ‘critical political economy’, which would encompass both conceptual reflection on the purpose of critical research, the concrete themes and topics that critical research should be addressing at the moment (labour, immigration, capitalism ‘moving East’, etc.), and the social purpose of critical research in terms of its impact on policies, social struggles, etc.

The board elected at the Business Meeting was:

Chair: Ian Bruff (University of Manchester, UK)
Vice-chair: Laura Horn (Roskilde University, Denmark)
Secretary: Mònica Clua-Losada (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain)
Website: Marcel Heires (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)

Many thanks to Jan Drahokoupil (University of Mannheim) for all of his hard work over the past 6 years, from founding the network to being its chair from 2005-9, to being a member of the board until now. He is now on our International Advisory Board, along with Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Dorothee Bohle (Central European University, Hungary), Jan Drahokoupil (University of Mannheim, Germany), Eva Hartmann (University of Lausanne, Switzerland), Martijn Konings (University of Sydney, Australia), Magnus Ryner (Oxford Brookes University, UK), and Susanne Soederberg (Queen’s University, Canada).

The next CPERN event will be announced in the coming months; watch this space!

CfP: CPE-RN conference “The Eurozone in Crisis” February 2011 in Frankfurt

CALL FOR PAPERS – WORKSHOP ORGANISED BY THE CRITICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH NETWORK OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION – http://criticalpoliticaleconomy.net/ http://www.europeansociology.org/

The Eurozone in Crisis: Challenges and Controversies in the European Political Economy(ies) and in Political Economy Research. Friday 18 – Saturday 19 February 2011, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

The ongoing economic and political turmoil in the eurozone (for example, Greece’s bailout, the downgrading of Spain’s credit rating, Ireland’s fall from grace) has highlighted the need for critical reflection on, and analysis of, developments in recent years. Accordingly, this workshop provides a forum for discussion of the European political economy(ies), plus the broader debates in critical political economy that have taken place in this period.

Therefore, papers will be sought on, FIRSTLY, empirical issues linked to the challenges faced by: member states; regions within the eurozone (e.g. the so-called PIIGS); CEE countries wishing to join (e.g. issues of euroisation faced by Hungary, etc.); institutions such as the ECB; the euro as a global currency; the crisis itself (inclusive of the 2008-9 period and the current fall-out from Greece’s troubles). SECONDLY, though, we are also interested in contributions which, while retaining Europe as their empirical focus, speak to broader conceptual and theoretical debates that have taken place over the past decade. To give a few examples, there have been lively discussions on: supranational governance in the light of the euro; the internationalisation of national states; the rise to prominence of inter alia the ‘cultural political economy’, ‘everyday life’ and ‘neo-Poulantzian’ literatures; neoliberalism; and ‘models’ of capitalism plus (in the European context) the notion of a social ‘model’.

As such, we seek contributions from scholars with an interest in political economy research, whatever their disciplinary affiliation (sociology, political science, economics, geography, anthropology, ethnology, development studies, area studies, history, etc.). Hence the workshop aims to attract a diverse range of junior and senior researchers, from postgraduate students to professors. To this end, limited funds will be availabe for assisting PhD researchers who present, especially those from Central and Eastern Europe, with their travel and accommodation costs.

The workshop will be held on Friday 18 – Saturday 19 February 2011 at Goethe University Frankfurt. Introducing the workshop will be Andreas Nölke, Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt. This will be followed by a plenary address on global/supranational governance and the internationalisation of the state by Ulrich Brand, Professor of International Politics at the University of Vienna.

There is no fee for attending and participating in the workshop. The workshop language will be English.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted to ianbruff@gmail.com by no later than Wednesday 13 October 2010. The applicants will be informed of the selection committee’s decision by no later than Friday 22 October 2010.

Quick update on SGIR conference

Dear all,

A quick update on the SGIR conference, where many of us were present. All in all, it was a successful event, and there is no doubt that there is a larger pool of researchers who are interested in issues related to critical political economy than may normally appear to be the case. Thanks to all of you for supporting the section on critical IPE through presenting/chairing/discussing.

It was one of the first times that we had a genuine choice over the panels we could attend, and we hope that this continues at future international conferences.

In addition, the network’s coordinator Ian Bruff was elected to the SGIR Steering Committee, so we hope to promote further the profile of critical political economy scholarship, in all of its richness and diversity, through his role.

We hope to see many of you again at our next workshop in Frankfurt in February 2011 (see next post).

Thanks and best wishes,
Ian, Laura, Jan and Marcel

Programe CPE RN sections at the SGIR conference, Stockholm 2010

Section 11 – The Return of the State? Global Capitalism and Geopolitics after the Crisis of Neoliberalism (Convenors: Henk Overbeek, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Nana de Graaff  and James Perry)  SGIR Section 11

Section 24 – Another Europe is possible? Alternatives and Resistance to neoliberal European governance (Convenor: Laura Horn) SGIR Section 24

Section 26 – Putting Critical IPE in its Place? (Convenor: Ian Bruff) SGIR Section 26

Section 31 – The European Subprime: The Financial Crisis in Eastern Europe (Convenor: Jan Drahokoupil) SGIR Section 31