Lent Term Seminars
Rosa’s Ecology: Climate Disaster, Political Economy, and International Law understood through the Work of Rosa LuxemburgSpeaker: Professor Christine Schwöbel-Patel (Warwick University School of Law) Venue: Room 138, Alison Richard Building, CB3 9DP Date: Wednesday 14 February 2024 Time: 17:00-18:00 (GMT) |
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Abstract: In a time of ecological crisis, it has become imperative to understand the structures – including legal ones – that are driving the continued exploitation of nature and people. In this talk, I will develop an idea of ‘Rosa’s ecology’ for making sense of the relationship between capital, nature, and law. I will argue that Rosa Luxemburg’s work can assist in navigating two key roles of international law in climate breakdown: First, the focus on the material side of social processes helps us to distinguish between international law’s symbolism (as remedial of climate change) and its material effects (as contributing to climate change). With Rosa, we grasp more clearly in which ways international law is part of the conditions of extraction and exploitation of nature. Second, through Rosa’s work on primitive accumulation, we see the specific role that international law has historically played at the frontiers of capitalist expansion, and the role it plays today in new areas of expansion, including in the green transition. | |
Transition2Transition: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as organic intellectual of the neoliberalisation of the European peripherySpeaker: Dr Stuart Shields (University of Manchester) Venue: Room 138, Alison Richard Building, CB3 9DP Date: Wednesday 21 February 2024 Time: 17:00-18:00 (GMT) |
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Abstract: This paper sets out to analyse the role played by regional development banks (RDBs) in consolidating neoliberal reforms in the European periphery. It does so by considering the pivotal role of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in articulating neoliberal development strategies in post-communist transition and subsequently rearticulating them in Middle East/North Africa’s (MENA) ‘post-authoritarian transition’. To analyse these articulations I frame the EBRD as a collective organic intellectual. Drawing on Gramsci’s contributions regarding the role of intellectuals in configuring hegemony the paper shows how international organisations like regional development banks such as the EBRD can be fruitfully understood as collective organic intellectuals who generate what appears to be spontaneous naturalised consent to hegemony. The paper uses this framing to focus on how the EBRD helps perpetuate neoliberalising common sense among those populations who are least likely to be the beneficiaries of such reforms through the ‘Transition2Transition’ strategy developed by the EBRD for MENA. It shows how key policies, ideas, and guidance, first operationalised in post-communist transition are also inculcated in the MENA transition through this strategy. The paper concludes by discussing the continuing and evolving commitment of reformers to neoliberalisation through the role of the EBRD in the refinement of reform strategies that maintain the disciplining power of capital over the population of the European periphery. | |
The Contested Regulatory State: Politicising Drug Rationing in Advanced DemocraciesSpeaker: Dr Takuya Onoda (SciencesPo) Venue: Room 138, Alison Richard Building, CB3 9DP Date: Wednesday 13 March 2024 Time: 17:00-18:00 (GMT) |
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Abstract: From tackling climate change to policies in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis to Covid-19, unelected expert bodies play a major role in policy choices in today’s many pressing problems. Whether they endorse them as an effective way of governing or criticise them as a threat to democracy, scholars tend to assume that the creation of these bodies “depoliticises” public policy problems. In my ongoing book project, I problematise this assumption and develop an analytical framework for understanding when and how the very functioning of regulatory state institutions can lead to politicisation. I argue that contrary to what is often believed, a more entrenched regulatory state with a decision-making structure insulated from elected politicians can actually result in a greater politicisation. My framework elucidates how different degrees of political insulation shape policy choices that impose losses on society, and how the policy choices, in turn, affect politicisation and policy development. I develop the arguments based on a study of drug rationing policies, or restriction of pharmaceutical products through public healthcare systems – policies that are illustrative of the politicisation of the regulatory state due to both its strong functional imperatives and its deep political consequences. It provides a comparative-historical analysis of the evolution of drug rationing policies in England, France and Japan, three major advanced economies with different regulatory decision-making structure. In doing so, the book challenges the prevailing notion that unelected bodies are instrumental for policy stability; rather, it shows that the building of the regulatory state is characterised by political conflicts and policy instability. |
Coming in Easter Term
Speaker: Professor Pia Rigirozzi (University of Southampton) Venue: TBD Date: TBD Time: 17:00-18:00 (GMT) |