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Review of Evolutionary Political Economy - Call for Papers - Special Issue: "Polycrisis"

Guest Editors

Charles Dannreuther (University of Leeds, UK)
Annina Kaltenbrunner (University of Leeds, UK)
Oliver Kessler (University of Erfurt, Germany)


Background

The global political economy is currently characterised by multiple crises. The notion of “polycrisis” highlights the possible end of neoliberal globalisation with its hope of progress and prosperity. With the contemporary agenda focused on degrowth and ecological crisis, rather than progress and renewal, the collective imaginary that stabilises global politics and economics today is one of uncertainty, fragility, and terminal decline.

At one level the manifestation of this “end of times” is an institutional one. We can see the decline of welfare coverage, the erosion of democratic institutions and of norms around legal justice that could, at first glance, appear to be a retreat into the corporate anarchy of 19th century liberalism. But times are different now. There is no clear alternative path or a wealth of untapped energy to fuel the new technologies that might drive growth. Rather, the ecological costs required to feed the needs of a modern welfare-based democracy far exceed what the planet can sustain.

So does the poly-crisis just reveal that the appetites of post-industrial capitalist democracies cannot be met? Or does it mean that the global political economy is in need of reformation? Or do the various crises show the reframing of the global order? And what are the different lived experiences, implications, and engagements with the poly-crisis in the Global North and the Global South?

The SI seeks new interpretations of the current unfolding of the polycrisis. It looks for inquiries that use the polycrisis to explore the challenges that come with it. How will the political economy look like when there is no progress anymore? Will there be another regime of accumulation or will key modern institutions like property, knowledge, organisation, science be challenged? For example, we invite papers that re-examine the relationship between technology and nature, explore the tensions that surround the reframing of identity with self, interrogate the limits of what can be known and what can be communicated, and fundamentally challenge the possibility of universal norms and values in the prescription of equality. In particular we invite scholars to examine some core themes associated with REPE and evolutionary political economy, including:

  • What challenges does the concept of polycrisis present to the ways that we understand political economy today?
  • How has the polycrisis challenged or reinforced the configurations of institutions and society in different parts of the globe?
  • How has the polycrisis redefined the relationship between the democracies of the North and their ex-colonies?
  • What are the drivers that have loosened and reformed the spatio-temporal fixes of global politics under the polycrisis?
  • Does the polycrisis indicate that we have entered an era of Post-Democracy? Or does it describe a multitude or subaltern political economy?
  • What are the consequences of a polycrisis for political agency and new forms might this take?
  • Does the polycrisis indicate an evolution revolution or collapse of global monetary and economic structures?
  • How does the policy crisis extend our understanding of the “new normal” 
  • What implications does the polycrisis bring for the financing of sustainable structural change?
  • How well do traditional political economy concerns (e.g. inequality, class, markets, gender, empire, hegemony, information asymmetry, uncertainty, routines) help us analyse the polycrisis and what new research agendas does it present?

Please send your abstracts (300 words max) to katharina.kassar@uni-erfurt.de (this opens in a new tab)
 

Dates 

Abstract Submission Deadline: 01 April 2024
Notification: 15 April 2024
Author workshop: 03 September 2024 in Bilbao
Submission Deadline: 01 October 2024


Indicative Articles

Carchedi, G. & Roberts M. (2022) Capitalism in the 21st Century Through the Prism of Value. Pluto Press

Zeitlin J., Nicoli F. & Laffan B. (2019) Introduction: the European Union beyond the polycrisis? Integration and politicization in an age of shifting cleavages. Journal of European Public Policy, 26:7, 963-976. DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2019.1619803

Mbembe A. (2019) Necropolitics. Duke University Press

Alami, I., Alves, C., Bonizzi, B., Kaltenbrunner, A., Koddenbrock, K., Kvangraven, I., & Powell, J. (2023) International financial subordination: a critical research agenda. Review of International Political Economy, 30:4, 1360-1386. DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2022.2098359

Gabor, D. (2021) The wall street consensus. Development and Change, 52:3, 429-459. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12645

Althouse J., Svartzman R. (2022) Bringing subordinated financialisation down to earth: the political ecology of finance-dominated capitalism. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 46:4, 679–702. DOI: 10.1093/cje/beac018

Download this Call for Papers here (this opens in a new tab).

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