Call for Applications: 2010 PhD Programme - Transnational Studies

Scholarships: 8 Doctoral Scholarships
Date: 3 year full-time PhD programme starting September 2010
Starting date for Applications: 1 December, 2009
Deadline for Applications: 1 February, 2010
Online application: www.transnationalstudies.eu

The Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (BTS), a joint endeavour of the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB), the Hertie School of Governance (HSoG) and the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), announces its next call for applications for its full-time PhD programme. All three are leading institutions in the field of political science and its neighbouring disciplines. The programme draws upon their faculty, research projects, facilities and services.

The three-year English language doctoral programme is designed for exceptionally talented and motivated graduate students. It offers state-of-the-art survey classes, a strong training in research methods and research design, skills courses and individualised supervision. While the courses and training present an important part of the curriculum, the bulk of the workload for the PhD candidates in the programme will be in the form of independent research for their dissertations.

The successful applicants will be informed in the first half of April 2010 in order to enter the doctoral programme in September of the same year. The three-year programme has a strong focus on social science theories and methods but also welcomes applications from adjacent disciplines like economics, history, law, and area studies. Dissertation topics should refer to one of the following three research areas broadly defined:

The analysis of national and transnational causes and consequences of political, societal and cultural globalisation.
The challenges to governance in international and transnational settings including issues of politisation and legitimacy, as well as in areas of limited statehood.
The comparative study of regional cooperation, including the EU.

The application requirements for the programme are:

· An exceptionally strong completed university degree qualifying for PhD studies in political science, international relations, sociology, economics, law or adjacent disciplines
· Proof of C1 level English language skills or the equivalent
· CV
· A short letter of motivation (600 words maximum)
· A research proposal including a timetable (5000 words maximum)
· Two letters of reference from faculty members

Call for Papers: Finance in question/finance in crisis. CRESC, University of Manchester, 12-14 April 2010

I would like to draw your attention to the Call for Papers below for the upcoming conference Finance in Question/Finance in Crisis which promises to be a big (150 people) event with participants from all disciplines: sociology, anthropology, critical business and economics, geography and politics/IPE.

If you are interested in submitting a panel (3-4 papers) please contact me at your earliest convenience: j.montgomerie@manchester.ac.uk. As the person responsible for the Politics and IPE section of the conference I am hoping to secure a good number of panels with a wide cross-section of participants.


ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change
Call for Papers

Finance in question/finance in crisis
University of Manchester, 12-14 April 2010

This international conference about finance is distinctive in that it invites analysis by, and encourages debate between, researchers from many disciplines who represent different kinds of political and cultural economy as well as social studies of finance. The emphasis is on finance in question as much as finance in crisis because, well before the onset of crisis in 2007, there were many unresolved issues about the role of finance in present day capitalism. The conference aims to re-examine received ways of understanding finance and to consider what changes to financial arrangement may follow from present strains.

As with other major conferences, there will be multiple themes and an opportunity for academic researchers to present papers and propose sessions. Themes so far proposed include: money, capitalist calculation, market devices and techniques; financial crisis, social relations and trust; the limits of prescience and the irrelevance of many economic knowledges; finance, restructuring and labour; politics/markets/moralities; states, re-regulation and governance of finance.

There will be media and practitioner sessions as well as plenary panels where distinguished academics will be set to answer big questions about what and who is in crisis, why did nobody see it coming and whether more democratic control of finance is possible. Plenary academics include Michel Aglietta (CEPII), Andrew Gamble ( Cambridge) Donald MacKenzie (Edinburgh), Doreen Massey, Philip Mirowski (Notre Dame), Onora O’Neill, Mike Power (LSE), Saskia Sassen (Columbia) and Wolfgang Streeck (Max Planck)
Please submit either (a) proposal for individual papers, or (b) panel proposal including 3 papers by 11th December 2009 Guidelines and Proposal Forms are available here and should be sent to:

CRESC Conference Administration
178 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: +44(0)161 275 8985 / Fax: +44(0)161 275 8985
Email: CRESC.AnnualConference@manchester.ac.uk

This conference is co- hosted by CRESC and the IWGF at the University of Manchester; and by the Australian Working Group on Financialization at the University of Sydney



Johnna Montgomerie
Research Fellow
ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC)
178 Waterloo Place
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 8997
Email: j.montgomerie@manchester.ac.uk

Conference: 'Globalisation and European Integration: the Nature of the Beast', 5th-6th June 2009, University of Warwick

A cutting-edge event on Critical Political Economy approaches to European integration and its relationship with globalisation. The conference aims to stimulate a constructive engagement between historical materialist, constructivist and post-structuralist approaches to European integration. It aims to encourage interdisciplinary exchange between specialists from the fields of politics, international relations, international political economy and sociology on their research findings regarding global governance, regional integration and the national state with special reference to the European Union.

Registration fee: £27 including refreshments, buffet lunch and wine reception on Saturday.

Registration deadline: 15 May 2009.

There is a limited number of places available, so please register as soon as possible in order to secure your participation.

Keynote Speakers: A. Cafruny and M. Ryner.

Participants:
K. Van der Pijl, B. Jessop, H. Overbeek, L.S. Talani, A. Bieler, W. Bonefeld, B. Clift, A. Wigger, H. Buch-Hansen, O. Holman, H.J. Bieling, S. Shields, C. Belfrage, J. Grahl, G. Menz, J. Baines, H. Macartney, I. Bruff, J. Drahokoupil, L. Levidow, C. Shaw, G. Strange, J. Tittenbrun, H. Plaschke, E. de Zutter, F. Ercan, S. Oguz, S.M. Rodrigues Balão, C. Dannreuther, K. Möller, C. Hermann, L. Horn, V.Muzaka, M. Notshulwana, A. Popa, O. Parker, J. Caballero, F. Capano, M. Fini, N. Fuentes, E. Gundogdu, W. Ko, O. Yaka, S. Braconi, J.W.Son.

For more information (conference programme, registration procedure, transport/accommodation information), please click here.

Co-organisers: Andreas Tsolakis (A.A.Tsolakis@warwick.ac.uk) and Petros Nousios (P.Nousios@warwick.ac.uk).

This event is kindly funded by the American Study and Student Exchange Committee and the PAIS department at Warwick.

The Second Warwick/RIPE Debate in IPE - Tuesday 5th May 2009

This is a reminder to all PESG members and to those people who keep an eye on our blog site that the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick will host on Tuesday 5th May the second of what is now an annual public debate in IPE organised in conjunction with the Review of International Political Economy. Last year's debate was conducted in front of an audience of 100 scholars drawn from 20 different institutions, and the content of the debate - complete with full audio recording - can be found here. This year's debate will take place between 4.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. in Lecture Theatre MS.01 in the Mathematics and Statistics Building. This is building number 35 on the campus map, and the closest car park is number 15.

The content of the Debate will revolve around the recent contribution to the study of IPE made by Professor Mark Blyth of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, who will be talking about and promoting his new book, Handbook of International Political Economy (Routledge, 2009). The event will take the form of a roundtable discussion of the intellectual rationale underpinning the organisation of the Handbook, and in addition to Professor Blyth it will also involve Professor Barry Gills (University of Newcastle, and a former Editor of RIPE), Dr Jeffrey Chwieroth (London School of Economics) and Professor Shirin Rai (University of Warwick).

There is no entrance charge for attending the debate, so this message constitutes an open invitation for all to attend. The Lecture Theatre will open at 4.00 p.m. for audience members to take their seats, as Routledge will be running a book stall advertising their IPE list from that time onwards. The Debate will begin promptly at 4.30 p.m., so please do try to take your seats at least five minutes before that time. The Department of Politics and International Studies looks forward to welcoming as many people as possible to the event.

PESG at the PSA

PESG is making its debut at this year's PSA conference in Manchester (7-9 April). We are putting on a roundtable and sponsoring or co-sponsoring four panels.

To mark our first outing at the PSA, we start off in the first session of the conference (Tuesday, 12.30, Room E1) with a roundtable on 'the case for political economy'. Andrew Gamble (Cambridge), Alan Finlayson (Swansea), Nicola Philips (Manchester) and Matthew Watson (Warwick) will be exploring the contribution that a political economy approach has made and can make to different subfields of political science.

The PESG sponsored panels are:

Session 2 (Tuesday 14.30, Room G2)
Representing Business in Changing Capitalism 1

Session 4 (Wednesday 11.30, Room H6)
Representing Business in Changing Capitalism 2

Panels co-sponsored with the Labour Movements Specialist Group:
Session 5 (Wednesday 16.00, Room G1)
Social Democracy and Political Economy 1

Session 6 (Thursday 09.30, Room H6)
Social Democracy and Political Economy 2

The Second Warwick/RIPE Debate in IPE - Tuesday 5th May 2009

The Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick hosts an annual public debate in IPE organised in conjunction with the Review of International Political Economy.

Last year's debate was conducted in front of an audience of 100 drawn from 20 different institutions, and the content of the debate - complete with full audio recording - can be found by clicking here.

This message is advanced warning of the date and the contents of the 2009 Warwick/RIPE Debate in IPE. It will take place on Tuesday 5th May and it will revolve around the recent contribution to the study of IPE made by Professor Mark Blyth of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, who will be talking about and promoting his new book, Handbook of International Political Economy (Routledge, 2009). The event will take the form of a roundtable discussion of the intellectual rationale underpinning the organisation of the Handbook, and in addition to Professor Blyth it will also involve Professor Barry Gills (University of Newcastle, and a former Editor of RIPE), Dr Jeffrey Chwieroth (London School of Economics) and Professor Shirin Rai (University of Warwick).

There is no entrance charge for attending the debate, so this message constitutes an open invitation for all to attend. The debate will take place between 4.00 p.m. and 6.00 p.m. on the afternoon of 5th May, and further details along with travel information will shortly be circulated about the precise room booking. The Department of Politics and International Studies looks forward to welcoming as many people as possible to the event.

The financial crisis: Responses and implications in Europe

Critical Political Economy RN at the ESA conference, Lisbon, 2-5 September 2009

Europe is experiencing its most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. The response of the EU and member states to this crisis has been paradoxical. The crisis has discredited the ‘Anglo-American’ model of finance-led capitalism and gravely weakened the American imperium.

Yet, the countries of Europe have been unable either individually or collectively to devise a concerted regional solution to the crisis. The result has been rising unemployment, the intensification of intra-regional disparities, signs of inter-state rivalries and is likely to result in growing poverty. Notwithstanding the deployment of massive resources to failing banks, the EU and member states continue to pursue the main planks of the neoliberal agenda, including labour market reforms, privatisation, and financialisation. This session seeks to address the prospects for a European alternative to U.S.-led neoliberalism. Addressing the theme of this conference, we aim to consider to what extent does the current crisis unite or divide Europe and prospective allies in the world order, and what are its implications for the European project of integration. We invite papers which consider at least one of the following:

• Limits and contradictions of the mode of development currently in crisis, which may enable us to understand the current conjuncture.
• The problem of translating intellectual criticism into policy prescription or alternative strategies
• The political consequences of the crisis, its implication for political strategies pursued in relation to the 'European model' as well as to the regulatory frameworks on national and sub-national levels
• The issue of contemporary social and political mobilization and attendant effects on the ‘limits of the possible’.

Abstracts should be submitted by 26 February 2009 (online submission form: view Call for Abstracts button at http://www.esa9thconference.com)

More information on CPE RN, see here.

Post-doc opportunities at the University of Helsinki

Two attractive post doc positions at the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research (University of Helsinki) have been announced. The deadline for applications is on Jan 29.

In Helsinki, we are constructing new spaces for research on global political economy and on private property rights. These two positions are intended to strengthen these areas.

Apart from the salary and related benefits, the other benefits include travel funds and, of course, an exciting and hip environment. In the coming years, we will have high-profile global political economy people in shorter and longer visits and appointments at the University of Helsinki.

For more information on our Centre of Excellence, see here

And for the ad itself, see here