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SPERI Presents...
SPERI
31 episodes
1 month ago

'SPERI Presents…' is a podcast taking on the big questions in political economy for scholars, students and publics within and beyond the discipline.


We also host 'New Thinking in Political Economy', an ongoing series with monthly episodes. Dr Remi Edwards is joined by authors of new research to explore the motivations behind, contributions and implications of their work for understanding power and politics in the global economy.


The first limited series was 'Lessons in Power'. Professor Michael Jacobs and Mems Ayinla interview ministers and advisors from the New Labour administration (1997-2010) to tease out lessons on a range of issues for Keir Starmer’s newly formed Labour government.


Coming soon: Crisis Point hosted by Chris Saltmarsh and Dr Dillon Wamsley.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Government
Education,
News,
Politics
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All content for SPERI Presents... is the property of SPERI and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

'SPERI Presents…' is a podcast taking on the big questions in political economy for scholars, students and publics within and beyond the discipline.


We also host 'New Thinking in Political Economy', an ongoing series with monthly episodes. Dr Remi Edwards is joined by authors of new research to explore the motivations behind, contributions and implications of their work for understanding power and politics in the global economy.


The first limited series was 'Lessons in Power'. Professor Michael Jacobs and Mems Ayinla interview ministers and advisors from the New Labour administration (1997-2010) to tease out lessons on a range of issues for Keir Starmer’s newly formed Labour government.


Coming soon: Crisis Point hosted by Chris Saltmarsh and Dr Dillon Wamsley.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Government
Education,
News,
Politics
Episodes (20/31)
SPERI Presents...
Live: Is organised violence central to capitalism? @ BISA 2025

How are technologies used by militaries to enact organised violence produced? How are post-industrial regions of the UK becoming dependent on the supply chains of the global war industry? What narratives enable organised violence perpetrated by elites, and how are they resisted? What is the role of everyday tedium and mundanity in producing such violence?


Dr Joanna Tidy is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at University of Sheffield. Dr Beryl Pong is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. Dr Frank Maracchione is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Kent. Dr Elena Simon is a Teaching Assistant at University of Manchester. Vick Reif-Breitwieser is a postgraduate researcher at University of Sheffield and co-convenor of the SPERI Doctoral Research Network.


They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss the political economy of organised violence enacted by, between and within states. They consider the relationship between ruling elites' violence and capitalist economies; how violence is produced by particular ways of knowing; the boundary (or lack thereof) between the civil and the military; the everyday as an important site where violence is made and contested in the global political economy; and how novel forms of data collection can help us more effectively study organised violence.


This SPERI Presents... episode is a live recording of the roundtable "Towards a Political Economy of organised violence: war, technologies, labour, and (re)production" at BISA 2025 conference. It took place in Belfast on Wednesday 18 June 2025.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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1 month ago
58 minutes 19 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: How does India's agrarian crisis harm women workers? w/ Shreya Sinha

The crisis of India's agrarian sector has been widely reported amid spates of farmer suicides and mass protest as incomes decline and indebtedness rises in response to falling productivity. What are the underlying causes of this persist crisis in India's agriculture? Is it right that we understand these phenomenon as 'crisis'? Who are the winners and losers? In particular, how are women workers disproportionately affected by the current upheavals?


Dr Shreya Sinha is Senior Lecturer in Business and Society at Queen Mary, University of London. She joins Dr Remi Edwards to discuss her paper 'Shifting agrarian labour regimes, ecology, and the crisis for Dalit women’s work in India' (2024) recently published in the Journal of Economic Geography. They consider what makes the conditions of Indian agriculture a 'crisis', social reproduction and the crisis' effects on women workers, the relationship between ecology and labour, and how political ecology and political economy can help make sense of the situation.


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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1 month ago
37 minutes 19 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Technocapitalism w/ Sami Moisio and Ugo Rossi

How have states evolved in tandem with the spread of techno-monopoly? Why do states and cities increasingly behave like startups? Is social polarisation a product of the startup economy or is it a necessary precondition?


Sami Moisio is Professor of Spatial Planning and Policy in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki. Ugo Rossi is Professor of Economic and Political Geography at the Gran Sasso Science Institute University. Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Knowledge Governance at University of Sheffield and Director of the Urban Institute.


They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss Sami and Ugo's new book The Urban Field: Capital and Governmentality in the Age of Techno-Monopoly. They consider the relationship between the urban field and techno-capitalism, inequalities between the creative class and casual workers in the knowledge economy, and the relationship between the startup economy and cities.


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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2 months ago
42 minutes 21 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Big Pharma w/ Owain Williams

A tiny number of huge companies dominate the pharmaceutical industry, making extraordinary profits in the process. All the while, the poorest people around the world struggle to access medicines they need to survive. What does the COVID-19 pandemic tell us about Big Pharma? What's the problem with a cartelized global market? What role does Bill Gates play in solving (or reproducing) the big challenges of global health? Is there a political economy explanation for rising anti-vaccine sentiment? Should we expect Trump's second Presidency to challenge the dominance of Big Pharma?


Dr Owain Williams is a Senior Research Fellow at the Commercial and Economic Determinants of Health Research Translation Centre at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia and a Visiting Associate Professor in Global Political Economy and Health at University of Leeds. Professor Simon Rushton is Professor of International Politics at University of Sheffield.


They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss Owain's recent co-authored paper COVID and structural cartelisation: market-state-society ties and the political economy of Pharma (2024). They consider the relationship between states and big pharmaceutical firms; the role of philanthropic-capitalist organisations like the Gates Foundation in global health governance; how effective (or not) markets are in delivering welfare goods like vaccinations; and the rise of vaccine hesitancy across the political spectrum.


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
37 minutes 48 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: A Theory Of Crisis w/ Dillon Wamsley & Chris Saltmarsh

How do we make sense of the multitude of so-called crises that dominate our current conjuncture? Is polycrisis a useful concept for getting to grips with the present condition of political economy? Are its proponents right to embrace uncertainty at the expense of theoretical explanation? Or can we hope to make sense of what's going on and chart a path forward?


Chris Saltmarsh is a postgraduate researcher at University of Sheffield. Dillon Wamsley is a postdoctoral researcher the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). They are producers and co-hosts of Crisis Point, a SPERI Presents... limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


In this final episode, they review the series by proposing a definition and theory of crisis. They draw distinction between crises of accumulation and legitimation, reflect on the nature of political economy in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, consider what the idiosyncrasies of climate change mean for the general theory, and finish by asking 'what is to be done'?


Works referenced in this episode:


Gamble, The Spectre at the Feast (Bloomsbury, 2009)

Adam Tooze on polycrisis (YouTube lecture)


Further Reading:


1) Tooze, 'Chartbook #130 Defining polycrisis - from crisis pictures to the crisis matrix' (2022)

2) Holgersen, Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World (Verso, 2024)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
44 minutes 20 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Climate Crisis w/ Jeremy Green

Climate change is one of the most urgent and existential challenges to emerge in capitalism's history. It threatens to undermine the basic conditions of capitalist accumulation not to mention human life itself. And yet, emissions continue to rise. Why? Climate change is often termed the climate crisis, but what does it actually have in common with historic crisis events like the 1930s or 1970s? What does this tell us about the possibility of resolving it through global energy transition? What can we learn about the nature of crisis in capitalism more generally?


Jeremy Green is a Professor of Political Economy at University of Cambridge. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the climate crisis, its intimate relationship to capitalism, and how it differs to other crises in capitalist history, and possibilities of overcoming it.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading:


1) Jeremy Green, Comparative capitalisms in the Anthropocene: a research agenda for green transition, New Political Economy (2023)

2) Matthew Paterson, 'Climate change and international political economy: between collapse and transformation', Review of International Political Economy (2021)

3) Brett Christophers, 'Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition', New Political Economy (2022)


Works referenced:


Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital (2016)

Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life (2015)

Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy (2011)

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (2010)

For Kondratiev's long waves: Nathan Rosenberg and Claudio R. Frischtak, Technological innovation and long waves (1984)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
41 minutes 28 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Populism w/ Michael Bray

Does the rise of populisms of both Left and Right varieties constitute a crisis in democracy? Is this a new phenomenon or has there always been a contradictory relationship between capitalism and democracy? How does the erosion of democratic norms relate to other crises in the political economy? Why does the Left seem so incapable of effectively confronting this multitude of challenges?


Michael Bray is Professor of Philosophy at Southwestern University. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss democracy in the history of capitalism, populism as a mode of politics, and how to navigate the crisis of representative democracy in the coming decades.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Bray, 'Rearticulating Contemporary Populism', Historical Materialism, 23 (2015)

2) Mouffe, For a Left Populism (2019)


Works referenced in this episode included:


Stuart Hall's The Great Moving Right Show

Hall on Poulantzas' authoritarian statism

Jairus Banaji on the incorporation of peasantries into capitalism


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
36 minutes 18 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Cost-of-Living w/ Martijn Konings

As prices keep on rising while wages stagnate, it becomes more and more expensive for ordinary people to afford the basic essentials. Does this inflationary pressure constitute a crisis in capitalism or should we understand it as a normal function of the system? What are the different ways that inflation can be managed and how does this effect who wins and loses? What effect will the shocks of climate change have on prices in the future?


Martijn Konings is Professor of Political Economy and Social Theory at the University of Sydney. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the resurgence of inflation in the 2020s, the role of central banks and governments in responding to inflation, and how inflation interacts with crisis in capitalism.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Montgomerie, 'COVID Keynesianism: locating inequality in the Anglo-American crisis response', Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 16 (2023)

2) Weber & Wasner, 'Sellers’ inflation, profits and conflict: why can large firms hike prices in an emergency?', Review of Keynesian Economics, 11 (2023)

3) Lindberg & Maier, The Politics of Inflation and Economic Stagnation (Brookings Institution Press, 1985)


Works referenced in this episode:


Martijn Konings review of Stiglitz on freedom

Martijn Konings' book The Bailout State (2024)

Isabella Weber on strategic price controls

Hyman Minsky on the 1929 crash and Great Depression


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
30 minutes 49 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Housing Crisis w/ Johnna Montgomerie

The housing crisis is a term used to describe a housing system characterised by extortionate rents with the only prospect of financial security realised through the huge debts associated with purchasing residential property. How did housing become financialised? What role does it play in capital accumulation today? Is this a normal condition of capitalism or are we right to understand it as a crisis? What chance do we have of transforming the system so housing re-takes its rightful place as a source of security and community?


Johnna Montgomerie is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at University of British Columbia. She joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the role of the housing system in the functioning of capitalism, the ways in which it constitutes crisis, and why the system is so hard to change.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Colin Crouch, 'Privatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy Regime', The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 11(3) (2009)

2) Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper, Martijn Konings, The Asset Economy (Wiley, 2020)



Works referenced in this episode:


Johnna Montgomerie's articles on housing:

'Austerity and the household: The politics of economic storytelling', British Politics, 11 (2016)

'Round the Houses: Homeownership and Failures of Asset-Based Welfare in the United Kingdom', New Political Economy, 20 (2015)


Susan Strange on economic power

Martijn Konings on the bailout nation

Greta Krippner on small savers in the US

Jonathan Hopkins on anti-system politics


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
36 minutes 42 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Austerity w/ Clara Mattei

Austerity has dominated Western politics since the 2008 financial crisis, but where did it come from? And why has it proved so enduring as a response to capitalist crises (real or perceived) despite appearing so unpopular? Has the nature of austerity changed over time as capitalism develops? Or does it retain a fundamental character across space and time?


Clara Mattei is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Heterodox Economics at The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss austerity as an elite strategy throughout capitalism's history from the interwar period to 2008; the relationship between capitalist crisis and austerity; and how it binds together liberalism and fascism; and its resilience.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading:


1) Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (2022)

2) Liam Stanley, 'Legitimacy gaps, taxpayer conflict, and the politics of austerity in the UK', The British Journal of Politics and

International Relations (2016)

3) Liam Stanley, '‘We're Reaping What We Sowed’: Everyday Crisis Narratives and Acquiescence to the Age of Austerity', New Political Economy (2012)

4) Dillon Wamsley, 'Crisis management, new constitutionalism, and depoliticisation: recasting the politics of austerity in the US and UK, 2010–16', New Political Economy (2023)


Works referenced in this episode:

Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World (2024)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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4 months ago
37 minutes 1 second

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Crisis in Economic Thought w/ Matthew Watson

The Long Depression spanned the 1870s into the 1890s, characterised by a prolonged squeeze on capitalist profits, deflation, protectionism and class conflict. How were the harms of this period distributed between classes? What does this early crisis of capitalism tell us about the relationship between crisis and capitalism more generally? How can it help us understand the contributions and limitations of marginalism and neoclassical economics?


Matthew Watson is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the Long Depression, how it was experienced differently by elites and non-elites, its debatable status as a crisis, and its place in the thought of marginalists and early political economists.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts (2000)

2) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 (1987)


Works referenced in this episode:


Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (1890)

François Quesnay, Tableau Economique (1758)

W. Stanley Jevons, Commercial Crises and Sun-Spots (1878)

Albert Musson, The Great Depression in Britain, 1873–1896: a Reappraisal (1959)

Quentin Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas (1969)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
40 minutes 21 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: 2008 w/ Scott Lavery

The 2008 financial crisis is the most totemic political-economic event in living memory. What were the causes of the crash? How does it relate to previous crises in capitalism, like 1970s stagflation? Many believed that 2008 signalled the end of neoliberalism. How did neoliberalism endure in its immediate aftermath? Does China's alternative economic model represent a serious challenge to neoliberalism almost two-decades on? How should we make sense of the post-2008 multipolarity in global politics?


Scott Lavery is Lecturer in Political and International Studies at University of Glasgow. His first book is British Capitalism After the Crisis (Springer, 2019). He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the short and long-term causes of the 2008 financial crisis, what the crisis has meant for neoliberalism, the fundamental conditions of British capitalism, and how we can use political economy to analyse contemporary crises.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Colin Crouch, The Strange Non-death of Neo-liberalism (Polity, 2011)

2) Adam Tooze, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World (Penguin, 2018)

3) Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (Verso, 2013) (chapter 12)


Works referenced in this episode:

Helen Thompson on inflationary pressure

Nicholas Crafts and Terence C. Mills on productivity slump


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
34 minutes 3 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Asian Financial Crisis w/ Jomo Kwame Sundaram

What does the 1997 East Asian Financial Crisis tell us about capitalism and crisis more generally? Should we include it alongside the 1930s, 1970s and 2008 as a major crisis in the history of capitalism? Or does it simply an early symptom of the conditions that eventually gave rise to 2008?


Jomo Kwame Sundaram is a Malaysian economist holding such positions including Visiting Senior Fellow at Khazanah Research Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and Adjunct Professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis including the role of the IMF in causing it; its experience in Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea respectively; and how we should understand it in relation to the 2008 financial crisis.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Jomo Kwame Sundaram (ed.) Tigers in Trouble: Financial Governance, Liberalisation and Crises in Southeast Asia (Hong Kong University Press, 1998)

2) George W. Noble & John Ravenhill (eds.), The Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

3) Frank Veneroso & Robert Wade, The Asian Crisis: The High Debt Model Versus the Wall Street-Treasury-IMF Complex, New Left Review, I/228 (1998)


Works referenced in this episode:


Robert Wade on East Asia, including the Republic of Korea


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
39 minutes 2 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: 1970s Stagflation w/ Colin Hay

The 1970s crisis of stagflation is often represented as a crisis of capitalism inciting transformation from post-war social democracy to neoliberalism, but was that really how the crisis was experienced at the time? Was capitalism itself at risk, or was this just a crisis in capitalism and of British politics? Is social democracy the right way to understand the post-war period? Were the unions as powerful as we're told? Did Thatcherism decisively solve the problem of inflation as is claimed? Given the prevalence of historical analogy, what can the 1970s (and, indeed, the 1930s) tell us about our current crisis-ridden conjuncture?


Colin Hay was a founding co-Director for SPERI in 2012 and remains in that position today. He is also a Professor of Political Sciences in the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss the international factors underpinning the1970s crisis of stagflation, misunderstandings about trade unions and inflation during the Winter of Discontent, ironic legacies of Keynesianism, Thatcherism as a political project, neoliberalisation as a process, and constructivist approaches to crisis.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Colin Hay, Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the `Winter of Discontent', Sociology (1996)

2) Leo Panitch, The Impasse of Social Democratic Politics, Socialist Register (1986)


Works referenced in this episode:


Colin Hay's doctoral thesis: 'Re-stating crisis : strategic moments in the structural transformation of the state in post-war Britain' (1995)

Ben Bernanke's doctoral thesis: 'Long-term commitments, dynamic optimization, and the business cycle' (1979)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
37 minutes 13 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Great Depression w/ Gareth Dale

For many the Great Depression represents the first and most devastating crisis in capitalism's history. How did it come about about? How did it change both the lives of ordinary people and capital accumulation? Was the Great Depression to be a model for future capitalist crises occurring in cycles, or a singular event producing a unique configuration of consequences?


Gareth Dale is Reader in Political Economy at Brunel, University of London. He joins Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley to discuss how the ideas of Karl Polanyi can help us understand the 1930s Great Depression in the longer history of crisis and capitalism.


Crisis Point is a limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present.


Recommended reading:


1) Karl Polanyi (1944), The Great Transformation

2) Gareth Dale (2010) Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market

3) Eric Helleiner (2014) Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
33 minutes 6 seconds

SPERI Presents...
Crisis Point: Debating Crisis w/ Dillon Wamsley & Chris Saltmarsh

Why is crisis a core feature of capitalism? What role does crisis play in the history of capitalism? How useful is crisis as a concept for understanding contemporary political-economic upheavals, for both scholars and activists? Are we in the midst of a crisis or new era of polycrisis or permacrisis? How can we understand our location within it?


Chris Saltmarsh is a postgraduate researcher at University of Sheffield. Dillon Wamsley is a postdoctoral researcher the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). They are producers and co-hosts of Crisis Point, a SPERI Presents... limited series introducing the political economy of capitalist crises, providing historical and theoretical rigour to discourses around crisis in the present. In this first episode, they discuss how the concept of crisis is variously understood in political economy literatures, begin to develop a working theory of crisis, and introduce key questions that will be applied to historic and contemporary crisis events throughout the series.


Recommended reading for this episode:


1) Andrew Gamble, Crisis Without End? The Unravelling of Western Prosperity (2014), Chapter 2, pp. 28-47.

2) Stuart Hall and Doreen Massey, Interpreting the Crisis, Soundings (2010)

3) Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, Capitalist Crises and the Crisis this Time, Socialist Register (2011)

4) Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks (1971), pp. 399-401


Works referenced in this episode:


1) Adam Tooze, Defining polycrisis – From crisis pictures to the crisis matrix (2022)

2) Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (2010)


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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5 months ago
32 minutes 27 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Human Costs of Caring w/ Shirin Rai

What are the human costs of caring labour? Where does this labour take place, who takes it on and how can we best study it?


Shirin M. Rai is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies SOAS, University of London. Dr Jayanthi Lingham is a Research Associate at the Centre for Care. They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss Rai's recent book Depletion: The Human Costs of Caring.


Works referenced:

Lingham & Johnston 2024

Budlender, 2010

Butler & Hoskyns, 2017

Cooper, 2014

Dowling, 2021

Elson, 1979

Federici, 1975

Fraser, 2016

Hirway & Jose, 2011

Katz, 2001

Mezzadri, 2022

Rai, Hoskyns & Thomas, 2014

Rai & True, 2020

Stevano et al, 2019

Bhattacharya, 2017

Waring, 1988


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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6 months ago
39 minutes 25 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Adam Smith & Corporations w/ Maha Rafi Atal

According to pioneering political economist Adam Smith, the liberalisation of trade was supposed to progressively grow social wealth for all nations and eliminate the need for social evils such as slave labour. Why, then, with production organised at a transnational scale and capital so mobile, do giant multinational companies continue to hoard profits while development stagnates for so many? And why does slavery and forced labour persist in global supply chains?


Dr Maha Rafi Atal is Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at University of Glasgow. She joins Dr Remi Edwards to discuss her recently co-authored article Adam Smith: His continuing relevance for contemporary management thought (2024). They consider what we can learn from Adam Smith to explain contemporary political economy challenges associated with global corporations including failures of corporate responsibility and regulation, extreme concentrations of power and wealth, and the difficulties of labour organising across borders.


Publications discussed also include Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) and Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).


Find out more about the Adam Smith 300 project at the University of Glasgow, including its' exhibition of his student's lecture notes discussed in the episode.


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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8 months ago
37 minutes 31 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Climate Scenarios w/ Ben Clift & Caroline Kuzemko

Despite decades of public knowledge about climate change and well-established international governance institutions designed to facilitate global energy transition, emissions continue to rise as climate breakdown intensifies. Why is climate modeling so important and what are technocrats getting wrong? What are the assumptions underlying these models of future climate scenarios and how do they misinform policy makers about the true costs of the climate (in)action? How can a constructivist approach to international political economy (IPE) help us understand the contestation the occurs within and between institutions on questions of climate mitigation?


Professor Ben Clift is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and Dr Caroline Kuzemko is a Reader in International Political Economy also at the University of Warwick. They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss their recent paper The social construction of sustainable futures: how models and scenarios limit climate mitigation possibilities (2024).


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


Acronyms used in this podcast:


IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

UNFCCC - United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

COP - Conference of the Parties

IAM - Integrated assessment models

OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

IMF - International Monetary Fund


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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8 months ago
38 minutes 14 seconds

SPERI Presents...
New Thinking: Queer Activism in Ghana w/ Ellie Gore

Queer men bear a disproportionate burden of HIV in Africa, but how do they experience the global development agenda of sexual health and sexual rights? What does a political economy approach bring to research on global development? How does queer political economy build on feminist approaches to help us locate contemporary Ghanian politics in histories of capitalism and colonialism? What are the lived experiences of queer men in Ghana in this context and what are their priorities in the struggle for queer liberation? How does an ethnographic methodology help researchers answer these questions and more?


Dr Ellie Gore is a Lecturer in Global Political Economy at University of Manchester and Dr Natalie Langford is Lecturer in Sustainability at University of Sheffield. They join Dr Remi Edwards to discuss Ellie's new book Between HIV prevention and LGBTI rights: the political economy of queer activism in Ghana (University of Michigan Press).


'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.


Publications referenced in the podcast include:


Ellie Gore (2024) Between HIV Prevention and LGBTI Rights: The political economy of queer activism in Ghana. University of Michigan Press.

Ellie Gore (2022) 'Understanding Queer Oppression and Resistance in the Global Economy: Towards a Theoretical Framework for Political Economy', New Political Economy 27/2, 296-311.

Saidiya V. Hartman (2021/2006) Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. Serpent's Tail.

María Lugones (2007) 'Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System', Hypatia 22/1, 186-209.


This episode is produced by the SPERI Presents… committee, including Remi Edwards, Chris Saltmarsh, Frank Maracchione, Emma Mahoney, Dillon Wamsley and Andrew Hindmoor. This episode was edited by Remi Edwards and Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information. 



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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9 months ago
36 minutes 7 seconds

SPERI Presents...

'SPERI Presents…' is a podcast taking on the big questions in political economy for scholars, students and publics within and beyond the discipline.


We also host 'New Thinking in Political Economy', an ongoing series with monthly episodes. Dr Remi Edwards is joined by authors of new research to explore the motivations behind, contributions and implications of their work for understanding power and politics in the global economy.


The first limited series was 'Lessons in Power'. Professor Michael Jacobs and Mems Ayinla interview ministers and advisors from the New Labour administration (1997-2010) to tease out lessons on a range of issues for Keir Starmer’s newly formed Labour government.


Coming soon: Crisis Point hosted by Chris Saltmarsh and Dr Dillon Wamsley.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.