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Forums

Containing sets of exchanges, reviews, and rejoinders on key award-winning books as well as significant new publications, this section of the blog offers insights on issues of debt, finance, war, militarism, feminism, mass strikes, and constructivist ideas.

Debating The Making of Modern Finance

This forum focuses on Samuel Knafo’s book The Making of Modern Finance, which was awarded the 2014 British International Studies Association (BISA) International Political Economy Group Book Prize. There is an overview post from the author as well as contributions from Martijn Konings, Christine Desan, and Adrienne Roberts.

Scandalous Economics

The publication of Scandalous Economics: Gender and the Politics of Financial Crises soon became a landmark text in critical political economy debates. This forum explores feminist political economy contributions from the editors Aida Hozić and Jacqui True as well as Sydney Calkin, Danielle Tepe-Belfrage and Johnna Montgomerie, Ian Bruff and Stefani Wöhl and Adrienne Roberts.

Debating Debtfare States

The pioneering status of Susanne Soederberg’s Debtfare States and the Poverty Industry was confirmed with the award of the 2015 British International Studies Association (BISA) International Political Economy Book Prize. This forum carries a Q&A on the book as well as additional reviews and commentaries.

Feminist Global “Secureconomy”

Led by Sara Meger, this forum brings together leading figures in feminist political economy to question the gendered economic structures of security politics and to relate them intrinsically. Violence, peacebuilding and militarisation cannot be hived off from labour markets, social reproduction, migration movements and development is one of the many messages in this discussion.

Debating War and Social Change in Modern Europe

Sandra Halperin’s book War and Social Change in Modern Europe is the focus in this short forum based on a mentoring reading group between Adam Morton and Alison Fenech who have both written features on the book from different theoretical perspectives.

Debating Economic Ideas in Political Time

As a pivotal contribution to agent-centred constructivist work in political economy, this forum focuses on Wesley Widmaier’s book Economic Ideas in Political Time. The contributions stemmed from a roundtable at the 9th Australian International Political Economy Network annual workshop by Penny Griffin, Shahar Hameiri, Sara Meger, John Mikler, Adam David Morton and Wesley Widmaier himself.

Debating Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India

Focusing on a hotbed of strikes from 2010 to 2014 in the Indian automobile industry and the Brazilian construction industry, this forum debates Jörg Nowack’s book Mass Strikes and Social Movements in India and Brazil. Contributors include Eddie Webster, Fahmi Panimbang, Maurizio Atzeni, Manjusha Nair, Ronaldo Munck, and Tom Barnes as well as a rejoinder from the author.

The Military Roots of Neoliberal Governance

Starting with the Sussex Research Group on Management and Neoliberalism, this forum showcases novel interventions on the managerial practices of governance in authoring neoliberalism. The important military lineage of contemporary neoliberal governance is thereby unveiled.

Debating Social Movements in Latin America

How can the mosaic of social movements in Latin America be mapped in the twenty-first century? This central question animates and unifies Ronaldo Munck’s latest book Social Movements in Latin America in order to provoke insights into the actors shaping the region today. In this forum, key figures deliberate the book and the agenda for workers, peasants, community organisers, feminists, indigenous and environmentalist activists in Latin America.

Debating Anatomies of Revolution

Revolutions appear to be everywhere but simultaneously are presented as irrelevant to a world in which the big issues of governance and economic development have seemingly been settled. This forum on George Lawson's major new book Anatomies of Revolution contests these polar extremes to generate a more judicious appreciation of the place of revolution in the contemporary world, examining how revolutions emerge, how they unfold, and how they end. The central task of the book and this forum, therefore, is to unravel the anatomies of revolution.

Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Global Crises

This forum revisits a Special Issue on International Financial Institutions and Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Review of International Political Economy (RIPE) edited by Aida A. Hozić and Jacqui True and first published online in April 2020. While the focus of the special issue was on gendered effects of economic recovery in post-conflict spaces, in this series of blogs, contributing authors re-examine their articles in light of the COVID-19 global crisis and explore their implications for the world, post-COVID recovery.

Politicising artistic pedagogies

This forum revisits a Special Issue entitled ‘Politicising Artistic Pedagogies: Publics, Spaces, Teachings’ published in late 2021 in the journal Art & the Public Sphere, edited by Ian Bruff & Mel Jordan. The special issue sought to disrupt more conventional understandings of art, politics and pedagogy through the deliberate juxtaposition of contributions that would not normally be seen together. It is the first of two collections in the journal, and gravitates towards broader, societal themes and questions.

Debating Making Global Society

What is the place of grand narratives in the social sciences? Or, more pressingly, is there a place for grand narratives in the contemporary academy? This is the central question posed by the symposium on Barry Buzan’s Making Global Society.