Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute Conference 2018

Call for Proposals

Political Economy Ten Years After the Crisis

Halifax Hall, University of Sheffield
2-4 July 2018

The SPERI Conference is becoming increasingly recognised as a key forum for debating major contemporary issues in political economy in new and challenging ways. It takes place in Halifax Hall in a leafy part of Sheffield and always attracts a range of leading scholars, doctoral students and practitioners with an interest in political economy.

Our 2018 conference will take place just a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event which exemplified the early stages of the financial crisis. We invite you to submit proposals for a panel of 3-4 papers, or an individual paper, related to the following conference themes:

• The unfolding impact of the crisis: the upheaval created by the 2008 crisis and subsequent recession, including Brexit and shifting global economic power; the long-term social and political consequences of the crisis; the capitalist economy’s legitimacy crisis.
• Responses to crisis dynamics: moves towards ‘inclusive growth’ and the rediscovery of ‘industrial strategy’; the rise of populism on the left and the right; prospects for the renewal of global governance.
• The political economy of the longue durée: the role of historical approaches in understanding contemporary capitalist development; the 2008 crisis as a historical ‘juncture’, comparable but distinct to previous crises; the ability of political economists to foresee future change, including a deepening of the present crisis.
• The generational implications of crisis: differential impacts and understandings of crisis across people at different life-stages; the ‘normalisation’ of crisis imperatives in young people’s political imaginaries; apparent conflict between different age cohorts.
• Institutional upheaval and continuity: the changing role of the state in relation to the capitalist economy; how institutions ‘absorb’ crisis dynamics; the emergence of a new post-crisis institutional framework for ‘managed capitalism’.

More generally, we would be interested in panel and paper proposals which address any of SPERI’s main research areas.

The opening plenary session of the conference will be addressed by Professor Adam Tooze, Professor of History at Columbia University and author of The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931. Professor Tooze will be speaking about his ongoing work on the history of the financial crisis. Other speakers already committed to address plenary sessions include: Helen Thompson (University of Cambridge), Richard Roberts (King’s College London), Michael Moran (University of Manchester), Ann Pettifor (PRIME Economics) and Torsten Bell (Resolution Foundation). More plenary speakers will be announced in due course.

More information about the conference can be found on the SPERI conference website.

Please submit your panel or paper proposal(s) to the conference administrator by emailing speri@sheffield.ac.uk by no later than Monday 18th December.

Please also feel free to discuss your ideas in advance with any of the conference convenors:
Colin Hay, Craig Berry and Adam Leaver