Organizers: Birgit Apitzsch, Britta Rehder, Katharina van Elten, Berthold Vogel

The law is central both for enabling markets, new actors or technologies, and for mitigating the social consequences of broader transformations. The law and legal systems, however, are social orders as well that can and should be included in socio-economic analyses. They do not only shape market conditions, but they are subject to contestations themselves. This affects the process of legislation, but also the jurisdiction, the interpretation and reinterpretation of legal norms within the professional community of legal experts, and legal mobilization.

This mini-conference invites contributions which explore dynamics within and around legal systems which unfold in the context of new technologies, transnationalization, or transformations within political economies:

1) Technological challenges to the law and the legal system:New technologies, especially online platforms which offer access to legal advice, and the introduction of artificial intelligence into analyses which provide the basis for setting up contracts or the provision of legal advice, are gaining in importance and spreading rapidly to different legal systems and legal fields. How do these ‘legal technologies’ mediate the access to the legal system? How do they relate to established processes, institutions and actors within the legal system?

2) Transnational challenges to the law and the legal system:Markets, social movements and life worlds which cross national borders raise questions of what laws apply, and how disruptive consequences of rapid market expansion can best be mitigated. In addition, in the last decades, new arenas, actors and organizations for legal support and dispute resolution have been established, thereby challenging traditional arenas. How do they relate to or challenge each other?

3) Legal systems and collective action:Transnationalization also implies the transplant of procedural laws from one legal order to another one. In Europe, and to a large extent fostered by the European Union institutions, the slow but steady emergence of collective litigation rights can be observed. The implementation of “class-action-style”-lawsuits signals the globalization of US-American law. In which regions of the world can this process be observed? How far-reaching is it? And how does this affect the traditional mechanisms of decision-making and conflict resolution in modern political economies?

4) Dynamics between the legal system and other institutions:The law is gaining in importance in different social spheres which hitherto have relied on other forms of regulation. For instance, setting minimum wages in Germany is discussed as a challenge to, but also as a support of corporatist systems of interest representation and mediation. Similarly, legal conflict resolution regarding discrimination is considered as a trend towards more individualistic forms of interest mediation, but also as an instrument which can be used strategically by unions. Therefore, we invite contributions which discuss dynamics between the legal and other systems of regulation.

Organizers: André Vereta-Nahoum, Simone Polillo

The idea of crisis may be as old as modernity (Koselleck, 2015), but, over the past decade, as crisis texts have become a “veritable industry” (to paraphrase Roitman, 2013: 3), scholars have joined public debate by drawing attention to the conditions of possibility of crisis, its uses and effects (e.g. Appadurai, 2015; Bear, 2015; Mounk, 2018; Przeworski, 2019; Streeck 2017). Following up on this emerging interdisciplinary work on the multiple conceptualizations and practices of crisis, we are interested in two broad and interconnected themes: the relationship between crisis and governance, and the relationship between crisis and time.

The first theme encompasses how crisis works as a political strategy and as a way of governing. Crisis is often associated with critique (Koselleck, 2015), when those who declare a state of affairs to be in crisis do so in the hope of summoning support towards changing the status quo. However, crisis makes it possible to associate a present state of affairs with previous choices, and so it serves to justify the implementation of significant reforms that are presented as exceptional but unavoidable measures – the only solutions to the emergencies. As a result, as Roitman (2013) argues, crisis can also blind critics to the assumptions behind declaring a state of affairs in crisis, to the effects of unexamined questions about what an enacted crisis refers to, and of policy options and shifts that are presented as necessary consequences of the enactment.

The relationship between the practice of crisis, and narratives about what makes a state of affairs normal, conventional, or settled, also hinges on particular assumptions about time and temporality, which is the second theme we want to explore. A crisis declared to be temporary requires different interpretative work and temporal narratives and does different work than a crisis perceived to be more secular or structural; a past crisis can affect interpretations about the present and responses in the form of future developments, but so can the threat of crisis in some more or less distant future. Particular local, regional, and national historical trajectories may also affect how crises are enacted and perceived, and how responses to the crisis are debated and translated into policy. The exceptionality or normalcy associated with a state of affairs considered to be a crisis must be analyzed and critically assessed. Conflicts between different and potentially incompatible time horizons may generate crisis, but also open opportunities for the strategic deployment of crisis in order to shift the balance of power and shape the range of available policy choices.

Within the broader themes of crisis and governance, and crisis and time, exemplary questions we invite participants to consider include the following:

• Who has the authority to declare a crisis, and what happens when other powerful agents (whether experts or publics) reject this characterization?
• Which material and ideational devices are employed to enact crises, and how does the temporal orientation of crisis vary as a result?
• How do particular historical trajectories—punctuated by crises or not—influence the enactment of crises?

Organizers: Roberto Aragão, Daniel DeRock, Joan van Heijster, Daniel Mügge

What is the role of statistics in development? The earliest statistics counted people and their wealth with an eye to boosting state capacity. Over time, however, socio-economic statistics morphed from highly targeted governance tools into encompassing lenses through which to see and assess ‘development’. Nevertheless, the statistics in use today are in many ways relics of the past, lagging behind rapid social and economic change. Critics argue that these numbers increasingly fail to capture what is happening on the ground and urge serious review and revision. At the same time, in a world increasingly filled with data and new technologies, statistics penetrate ever more institutional domains. Just as with more traditional government statistics, however, these new forms are  liable to be beset with problems. They may reveal or hide new axes of inequality and reinforce existing ones. On top, ubiquitous data collection feeds public anxieties about surveillance and control. New trends in statistics for development therefore deserve our careful attention.

This mini-conference proposes a reflection on the past, present, and future of statistics as tools for development across the world. We particularly welcome contributions presenting empirical evidence or exploring theoretical aspects about the following issues (questions are not exhaustive):

• The history of statistics in development thinking: How have statistics shaped development paradigms?
• Macroeconomic statistics today and their limitations: Do headline indicators like GDP, unemployment, inflation, public debt and deficit reflect socio-economic realities, or distort them? Why do these macroeconomic indicators persist?
• The future of statistics for development and how to tackle global inequalities: What kinds of biases, pitfalls, and potentials are likely to emerge and how might they affect development outcomes?
• Expertise, ideas, and agency in statistics: How do professionals and expert networks decide how economic indicators are calculated?
• Statistics and development in a multipolar world: To what extent are changes in the global political-economic order reflected in the push and pull over statistics?

Selection criteria and financial support

The organizers hope to include perspectives from diverse vantage points, including from countries that have traditionally been the objects of international organizations’ ‘development policies’. This mini-conference does encourage diversity along a range of dimensions. To facilitate that, we offer financial support (return flight ticket and 4 nights of hotel accommodation in Amsterdam) for 4 (four) mini-conference participants. Financial support is intended for participants who lack the financial means to attend the conference and who come from countries and regions that are traditionally underrepresented in European and North American academic circles. This support is made possible by the European Research Council (ERC) FICKLEFORMS starting grant (637883). Scholars who are interested in applying for such support can send an email to the organizing team at the same time as they submit their application to the mini-conference in the usual manner.

Organizers: Julian Go, Zophia Edwards

In 2019, the Amsterdam Museum announced that it will remove all references to the Dutch “Golden Age” from its galleries, in recognition of the Netherlands’ role in perpetuating colonial brutalities and the transatlantic slave trade. This “decolonization” of the Amsterdam Museum offers an opportunity to also consider the possible “decolonization” of social science. In particular, it offers the opportunity for scholars to more seriously explore the role of colonialism, racism and slavery in capitalist expansion and global development. This mini-conference offers a forum for this critical exploration.

This mini-conference capitalizes on recent developments within social science more broadly. While critical theories and studies of development have existed for decades, starting with Dependency/World-Systems theories and continuing through the “postdevelopment” approaches – manifested in the work of Escobar (1984) and Ferguson (1990) among others – newer “decolonial”, “postcolonial” and “Southern” approaches have emerged in their wake. These paradigms have surfaced in a variety of fields and subfields, including comparative-historical sociology, social theory, political theory and comparative politics. Together they make explicit the Eurocentric, imperial/colonial and often racialized bases of Northern social science and seek critical alternatives, either by reconstructing historical narratives as “entangled” and “connected” or by discovering and critically deploying the knowledge, concepts and theories of postcolonial/Southern thinkers and social movements.

The miniconference will take stock of these recent critical turns and their implications for the study of development. Compared to earlier critical approaches, what if any is the added value of these approaches for understanding social, political and economic development? What are the limits? What theories, concepts and research follow from the recognition of the decolonial/postcolonial critique of knowledge? Theoretical, programmatic, or empirical papers are welcomed. Topics might include but are not restricted to:

• legacies of imperialism and colonialism upon development
• the colonial gaze and the imperial episteme in development studies
• global academic inequality and epistemic inequality
• southern/subaltern knowledges, theories, and concepts
• decolonial developmental practices and knowledges in international organizations
• racialization and developmental projects
• Southern and subaltern resistance to Eurocentric development projects
• decolonial methods of research
• ”imperial feedback” and the circulation of technologies and knowledges

Organizers: Gil-Sung Park, Hang Young Lee, Eun Kyong Shin

This mini-conference aims to explore the new challenges in diffusion of innovations introduced by revolutionary transformation in data, technology and computation.

In the New world of automated data collection and advanced computation, massive amounts of dynamic data have accumulated exponentially. Big data (high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets) and well-trained algorithms can have strong incentives for diffusion of innovation: high performance, expanded reach, increased visibility. Yet, accumulating large quantities of data and advanced computation rarely, if not ever, automatically solve the problems we face. In the era of Big data, what are the newly introduced challenges with the recently transformed scene? How desirable diffusion of (broadly defined) innovation, is achieved in the era of new and big data?

In this digitized social world, the landscape for diffusion of the new — new types of social behaviors and  innovations– is neither flat nor plain. Whether it is a new health practice or a novel data collection tech, it has to travel upon the new digitized territory. New algorithmic contour has introduced unseen types of barriers for efficient diffusion of innovations: Digital blind spot, algorithmic affirmation and discrimination, unfiltered bias, and robot produced data.

The mini-conference will discuss the most pressing challenges in diffusion of the new (innovations) in the Newworld and strategies to avoid hidden pitfalls on the algorithmic horizon.Drawing on a range of methods including social network analysis, machine learning, and big data analysis, we seek to contextualize the Newchallenged in diffusion, such as digital innovation diffusion, information circulation networks, showing the complexity of diffusion of the Innovations on the new algorithmic contour.

We welcome contributions presenting empirical evidence or exploring theoretical considerations about the following issues:

• Diffusion Networks: Information and resources travel through links. The very network of resource distribution contributes how resources are accumulated and redistributed. How the digital contours affect the diffusion process?
• On and Off: How to link on-line diffusions and off-line diffusions? Are the digitized diffusive patterns similar to those of off-line diffusions? If not, how to make an inference from digital diffusion for off-digit space?
• Target Specific Diffusion: As the scope of direction of diffusion has widely expanded, the main challenge of diffusion of innovations on the new algorithmic contour is not just how far they reach, but how appropriately they reach to the relevant adaptors. How shall the diffusion path be deigned to maximize the efficiency while minimizing useless digital debris?

Organizers: Lorenz Lassnigg, Aaron Benavot, Stephanie Matseleng Allais, Justin J.W. Powell

Socio-economic perspectives on education policy are important in development models. However, social science disciplines tend to compete rather than collaborate in their analysis of education. The purpose of the mini-conference is to engage and juxtapose different disciplinary perspectives on these issues, taking the IPSP (www.ipsp.org) Report as a starting point (Rethinking Society for the 21st Century. Report of the International Panel on Social Progress. Vol.I-III, Cambridge University Press).

The following topics/questions should be addressed:

How should education policy weigh the links between economic, political, social, and cultural purposes, and what alternatives to instrumental understandings of education policy exist? Economic claims deeply influence dominant instrumental thinking in education policy making, at times mobilized by authoritarian/oppressive regimes. How have policies and evidence promoted by the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) impacted understandings of progress, and what movements have emerged to oppose these? Which purposes and values in education policy do key actors emphasize? How are education sectors (mass general, vocational, higher, and adult education) related to different purposes? To what extent can inclusive education replace special education in exclusionary systems with segregated settings and focus on educational disadvantage? Is quality education possible while education is part of a palliative approach to development which addresses symptoms rather than causes of under-development?

How and with what consequences might globalization and digitalization contribute to disrupting educational structures? Because formal education is still a national topic, processes of policy learning and transfer beyond the national level are often invisible. Digitalization and the emergence of private education multinationals create new transnational spaces that circumscribe state power. What evidence do we have of how these phenomena impact national (policy) development and of differences for countries in the Global North and Global South? How are meanings of development enacted in the international flows of educational services? How are global policy platforms and instruments (e.g., SDGs) influencing development models with respect to education?

What is the role of lifelong learning and of informal learning and contextual factors in understanding education policy? In practice, the focus in lifelong learning is still predominantly on formal and non-formal education rather than supporting informal learning and learner friendly environments. Most policies are still focused on formal education. How can informal learning be analyzed und supported, and how does it interact with formal education? How can contextual factors be integrated into education policies? How are informal learning and the informal economy inter-related, and will these relations change due to digitalization? What kinds of lifelong learning approaches and practices are different countries establishing and supporting?

How is education policy influenced by disciplinary understandings of education, and how might multi and trans-disciplinarity and challenges to technocratic understandings contribute to progress? (IPSP Report Ch22) How can multi-disciplinary and socio-economic perspectives enrich disciplinary understandings? To what extent does the proliferation of international standardized data (e.g., PISA, PIAAC) facilitate meaningful comparisons across regions/countries rather than reinforce technocratic understandings of education? How is research related to the various actors, such as educators, associations, and broader constellations in education policy making?

Organizers: Céline Bessière, Maude Pugliese

Wealth inequality is on the rise both within countries and at the global level—it has now reached levels unseen since the first decades of the 20^th century. While research on the causes and consequences of this phenomenon is quickly developing, few studies have explored how gender intersects with wealth inequality. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on labor-related incomes; until recently, it has dedicated comparatively little attention to the question of gender disparities in the process of wealth accumulation. This mini-conference aims to bring together scholars who study how gender may shape the reproduction/intensification of wealth concentration in different national contexts.

We are especially interested in papers addressing the following issues using a variety of methodological approaches, from ethnographic research to statistical analyses.

• Historically, legal discrimination has prevented women from accumulating wealth all over the world. Nowadays, in Western legal traditions (common law and Civil code territories) property laws are formally equal. This is not the case in countries where religious or customary traditions explicitly favor male property rights. In these different national contexts, we welcome papers that study the political and legal framing of male and female accumulation, as well as the role of legal and wealth professionals (lawyers, judges, notaries, wealth managers, bankers, …) in the extension/reduction of the gap.
• The gender wealth gap is poorly documented because surveys around the world tend to collect wealth data only at the household level. This strategy obscures gender wealth inequality located within couples, and it sometimes even leads to the assumption that couples share and equalize wealth across partners. That assumption may have been adequate fifty years ago, when most couples were married for life. Since then, however, a growing number of couples have adopted cohabitation over marriage and even those who are married can now opt for matrimonial property regimes without obligations to redistribute wealth after divorce. In this new context, how do spouses and partners manage their wealth? How do they distribute it in the event of marital breakdown or death?
• A few countries have recently begun to collect individual-level wealth data. What does this evidence say about gender wealth gaps, especially within households; how large are those gaps and how do they change across countries, depending on class, race, age, and between generations? More importantly, how can they be explained? Are gender wealth gaps entirely due to wage inequality between men and women or do other factors also play a role? For example, are receipts of intergenerational transfers unequal across gender?

How does gender influence the reproduction/intensification of wealth inequalities? While men remain wealthier than women, on average, a number of women have now joined the ranks of the national and global wealth elites. Are there differences in the strategies men and women deploy to protect their wealth, pass it on to their children, and create family dynasties?

Organizers: Magnus Feldmann, Marcus Gomes, Daniel Kinderman, Glenn Morgan, Dorottya Sallai

As the neo-liberal order weakened under the impact of the Global financial crash and the following period of austerity, countries in the global North have been swept by the rise of populist movements, pitting the ‘people’ against the ‘elites’ and challenging many of the shibboleths of neo-liberalism such as free trade, labour migration, FDI and the relocation of production and the independence of central banks. Key institutions that underpinned the liberal democratic framework such as an independent judiciary, a free press, the separation of powers, a neutral civil service, a dynamic and uncensored university sector have been attacked by populists fronting old and new parties. They have built on previous political failures by traditional elites to present a new approach to politics and economics resting on nationalism, protectionism and an antipathy to neo-liberal international governance institutions. In the Global South, leaders such as Bolsonaro, Duterte, and Modi have come to power using a similar populist discourse (though connected to the specifics of their own country’s institutional legacy including its specific legacy of populist ideas and movements). Efforts to link organizationally and ideologically populist movements have been labelled ‘global populism’.

This mini-conference explores the role and behavior of business in the era of global populism. The political framework has shifted from neoliberalism in which business elites enjoyed an influential position on policy-making. Most populist movements define the elite as ‘the enemy of the people’ and large businesses are implicitly included in this framing. Whilst this may conceal the continued ability of business to influence populist governments in their favour, it makes for a more complex and challenging political environment for business as the cases of Trump in the USA and Brexit in the UK illustrate. In this mini-conference, we therefore invite contributions that examine the varied interactions of populist politics, economic policies and business elites in both the Global North and the Global South. Possible themes include;

• Interactions between populist politics and business elites in particular countries of groups of countries – clashes , conflicts and compromises.
• The role of certain business groups in diffusing populist politics nationally and internationally and their purposes and goals in doing so.
• The interaction between populism, business and economic policy in areas such as migration, trade policy, taxation, trade unions, central bank independence
• The attack by populists on international cooperation over issues such as financial regulation, climate change and environmental protection.
• The attack by populists on a expertise, a free press, parliamentary institutions and an independent judiciary. Does this matter to business?
• How have business responded to populist anti-feminist rhetoric and anti-diversity policies in employment?
• How do populist politics impact on development, accumulation, surveillance and redistribution?
• In what ways does global populism affect state-firm relations and firm-level strategies?
• How is increasing populism affect international business strategies and corporate governance in a global context?
• How have business associations responded to populism? What circumstances have prompted business associations to initiate campaigns, public protests, or lobbying against populists?

Organizers: Stéphanie Barral, Patrick Bigger, Ritwick Ghosh

From climate change to biodiversity loss, environmental crises have sparked an interest in the power of economic ideas in environmental and industrial policy. On one hand, scholars, politicians, and activists blame free-market capitalism for runaway pollution, emissions, deforestation, over-consumption, and inequality. On the other hand, market mechanisms have come to be seen by many policy makers and private sector actors the only viable option for coming to grips with environmental degradation. The reduction of environmental crises to problems of economic management has thus served to magnify the power of capital in public life. This contradiction lies at the heart of the Green Economy. Unpacking these contradictions necessitates working with new analytical ideas, across disciplines, and through comparative cases.

Examples of green economy approaches are plentiful. Market-based policy instruments such as carbon trading schemes illuminate this dynamic, as does the reframing markets in the language of environmentalism through financial products like green bonds, environmental impact investing, or voluntary reporting of financial exposure to environmental change. At the international level, programs such as REDD+ reflect the scalar enactment of economic and environmental logics, which then play out in vastly different ways locally, subnationally, and nationally. Given the increased financial, entrepreneurial, and market-governance activity to address a host of environmental and social issues, it merits asking how the contradictions play out both ‘in place’ and across the world. What narratives, activities, and trade-offs produce the green economy as it actually exists? What happens when ecological and financial concerns don’t align? To what extent has the economization of environmental policies led to processes of rent-capture, surveillance, or dispossession in their making? How are these processes being challenged? What resistance strategies or alternative propositions exist at a time when the hegemony of market-logics is being challenged in other spheres?

We invite panelists to think through how actors respond, justify, struggle, and negotiate new arrangements in a moment of green economy contradictions- and how these new arrangements produce new contradictions themselves. The mini-conference aims to energize a cross-disciplinary dialogue and bring them together under the frame of Green Economy Contradictions. The mini-conference welcomes papers that explore these issues empirically, in a wide range of geographical and institutional contexts and through diverse or novel conceptual frameworks.

Propositions may explore other dimensions of green economy, though preference may be given to proposals that align closely with the themes above.

1. The role and types of expertise – scientific, economic, or political – foundational to the creation of green economy mechanisms or discourses, and how contradictions between different types of expertise are or are not resolved
2. The centrality or absence of the state in the deployment of green economy initiatives and the state’s role in producing or mediating green economy contradictions
3. Divergent accumulation strategies in the green economy- what types of contradictions are or are not present depending on the strategy to realize profit from environmentally beneficial projects or regulation?

Organizers: Hanna Lierse, Patrick Sachweh, Nora Waitkus

The unequal distribution of private wealth deeply concerns the public and academic debate. Over the last decades, the wealthy across the globe have made spectacular gains that lead to a growing concentration of capital at the top. Estimations suggest that since the 1980s, the wealth share of the top one percent increased from 25 percent to 40 percent in the world (Zucman 2019). Although a strong concentration of wealth has historically always been characteristic of capitalist societies, the recent resurgence in wealth inequality has not only deepened economic divides but also created an open-ended space for further social and political advantages. Against this backdrop, the academic debate on wealth inequality in the early 21^st century has gained momentum resulting in a quickly developing field of interdisciplinary scholarship. This mini-conference  aims to enhance the exchange among scholars different disciplines who study the dynamics of wealth and wealth inequality. We welcome theoretical as well as empirical contributions (both of quantitative and qualitative nature) from the Global North and South. To structure the debate, we invite papers that study wealth and wealth inequality from three analytically distinct, but empirically overlapping angles:

• First, we welcome contributions that address the analytical, theoretical or normative dimensions of wealth, its accumulation and its (re)distribution. While wealth inequality has received increased empirical scrutiny, little attention has been paid to its theoretical conceptualization. What differentiates wealth from other dimensions of socio-economic advantages? Are some components of wealth considered more legitimate than others? Are there limits to private wealth accumulation or certain levels which are perceived as unjust?
• Second, we are interested in papers describing and explaining empirical patterns of wealth accumulation and distribution. From this perspective, we ask for instance: which societal groups have benefitted from wealth gains and which ones are falling behind? How does wealth inequality differ cross-nationally and to what extent are these differences related to varying economic, political, institutional and cultural conditions?
• Third, we invite contributions that address the political dimension of wealth inequality and redistribution. How do states seek to influence the concentration of wealth at the top? How can we explain the recent abolishment of many wealth taxes such as net wealth and inheritance taxes? What is the role of different socio-economic contexts, organized actors such as economic elites, or changing policy ideas on wealth-related policies?

Organizers: Felipe González López, Gary Herrigel, Adriana Mica, Ann Mische

Social action, entrepreneurship and decision-making are increasingly depicted as taking place in a context of possibility, alternatives, and opportunities waiting to be revealed.

Attention to the expansion of the spectrum of what is possible helps to advance alternative economic activities (sharing or cooperative economies), nonconventional entrepreneurship, original forms of adaptation, social and technological innovations, social movements, and even new types of governance infused with hope. Hence, exploring both the generation of the possible as well as efforts to engage in experimentation can be a tool to reduce or, at least, challenge social inequalities. At the same time, however, visions of the possible can generate disappointment regarding less advantageous or unexpected developments. These might include, for instance, claims regarding the failure to anticipate episodes of crisis (financial, migratory etc.) or inaction in responding to crises (ecological etc.). These developments infuse the exploration and transformation of the possible with urgency, pressing policymakers, scientists and citizens to imagine alternative scenarios and push the boundaries of what people consider to be plausible and desirable futures.

The exploration of possibility can also generate cynicism regarding futile utopianism or ‘voluntarism”. Further, some preoccupations with possibility can also lead to the reification of future scenarios, and to subsequent fatigue and (ironically) to pessimism about the future. Examples include the reification of “dark” futures in relation to economic downturns, limits to growth and resources, health and environmental risks, or the “invasion of migrants” in Europe. On the one hand, there is something intrinsic and unavoidable in this: the “possible” always remains in an indefinite future and projections forward reflect contemporary power alignments and sensibilities. On the other hand, these dangers underscore the stakes in examining the possibilities for destabilization and possibility creation: by embracing uncertainty in the present, exploration of the possible can become part of political struggle. This highlights problems of perspective, inclusion and power in ways that help identify potential for destabilization. Reification occurs via the voicing of certitude that certain risks or possibilities will materialize, without preliminary discussion of the extent to which possible worlds are in fact probable.  Cynicism arises when possibilities have little substance or are too willfully detached or contentious regarding relations in the present. The study of possibility is thus extremely hazardous and easily undermined or rendered inconsequential.  The generation of credible possibility is genuinely difficult as a social, political and theoretical problem. It nearly always involves destabilization in both ideas and practices.

This mini-conference aims to explore the ways in which the generation and exploration of possibility, as a social process, affects and informs developmental currents across domains in the contemporary world. We will discuss how it enables or blocks individual and collective action; how it contributes to political struggles; how it provides templates for social policy; and how it re-arranges temporalities across social fields. We will also consider the conditions that lead to the exhaustion of possible futures. Finally, we will discuss the most suitable sociological theories and research methods that scholars can use to investigate possible worlds.

Organizers: Kathryn Ibata-Arens, Etienne Nouguez

The world is experiencing rapid transformations in the development of new approaches to improving human health and the health of communities, healthcare provision, governance over the use and pricing of drugs and medicines, and medical innovations in biotechnology (genomics and stem cell-based therapies). For example, open innovation systems and sharing in the commons have introduced healing medicines and medical innovations (e.g. the Human Genome Project). At the same time, there is growing inequality in who gets access to medical care and medicines, and at what price.

Meanwhile, market competition has in part led to the opioid crisis of addiction in the United States, human subjects abuses in developing countries in the race to develop new drugs, and a decline in the discovery of radical new innovations in medicines for poor populations. This mini-conference aims to convene a group of related panels around issues in global health and medicines, to facilitate useful critical discussion and reflection on participants’ works-in-progress. Driving questions include:

• What theoretical advances are being made in understanding causal mechanisms in improving, or undermining human health and community health, for example, through state policy and firm and organizational strategy? What new frameworks and methods are being developed to identify key actors and explain actions (e.g. improving, or undermining health, broadly defined)?
• What is the evolving role of the state, healthcare systems and professions, and other actors (multilateral bodies, firms, non-profit organizations) in medical and medicine provision and innovation? Are we seeing a shift from traditional dominant blocks (North America and Europe) to new actors (Asia and the Global South)? Likewise, how have states and healthcare organizations been effective (or ineffective, indifferent) in the valuation and pricing of medicines (fair, equitable, and affordable access to life saving medicines)?
• What should be the responsibility, if any, of the global intellectual property rights regime as arbitrated by such powerful organizations as the World Trade Organization and global corporations in monitoring access and benefit sharing of profits resulting from research and development into new drugs and medicines?
• What are the roles for regulation and institutionalization of markets for such boundary-products between medicine and health food as probiotics, herbals, so-called nutraceuticals, and other dietary supplements – in ensuring the health and safety of consumers and patients?
• In what way is current research and policy aiming for “inclusive” innovation (e.g. in healthcare provision, new drug discovery) focused on distributive aspects versus stakeholder inclusion, or both (e.g. under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs))? What is the relative role for (social) entrepreneurs, large firms, and other actors?

Our mini-conference encourages submissions of papers exploring emerging frameworks and theories, as well as empirically rich original data from the developed and developing world and at various levels of analysis (e.g. local community, firm, state, multilateral institution). Scholars at all levels are welcome. In the spirit of innovation and creativity, the panels will have an interactive workshop format around discussant feedback and moderated audience participation. For more information, contact the co-organizers at medhealthSASE2020@gmail.com.

Organizers: Ilias Alami, Milan Babic, Adam Dixon, Nana de Graaff

The crisis of the liberal world order has called into question its underlying (neo)liberal and coordinated economic models. So-called “state capitalist” economies and development strategies are projecting alternative pathways across the globe. The rise of those alternatives is, however, not simply a return to atavistic statist development tools and policies. The new statist practices are global in nature: research on networked corporate elites, ownership and investment ties and capital flows shows that state capitalism is more transnationally integrated than ever before.

The aim of this mini-conference is to synthesize and advance this burgeoning research agenda. The new ways in which “state capitalism” works warrants new theoretical, methodological, and conceptual approaches in order to understand the dynamics shaping this rise. We focus on two elements of this research agenda. One is the analysis of new configurations, practices and varieties of state capitalism and its tools. The other is the case of China as the global spearhead for state-led development models.

Thematic overview

The first stream looks at the various ways state capitalist practices and development models have recently emerged within the global economy. This stream tries to identify characteristics of a new, global form of statism that is different from previous waves of “state capitalism”. Expected contributions could address the following items of the research agenda:

• How to explain the more visible role of the state in capital accumulation?
• What is the (theoretical, conceptual, empirical) nature of the new state capitalism?
• What are the institutional and geographical configurations and varieties of the new state capitalism?
• New tools of state capitalism? The global role of SOEs, SWFs and others.
• State power through state capitalism? The re-discovery of state power in times of globalization.

The second stream dives into China as the most relevant empirical example of a renewed state capitalist development model. China spearheads many of the globalizing institutional and corporate forms that shape the renewed mode of state-led capitalist expansion such as cross-border firm takeovers, development banks (e.g. the AIIB), or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Contributions to this stream can, among others, address the following themes:

• The role, implications, and contradictions of “Sino-Capitalism” in a global context.
• The socio-economic and (geo)political implications of cross-border Chinese investments as well as the responses by host countries around the world.
• US-China relations, from trade war to industrial policy war and the quest for technological dominance.
• Chinese challenges to the liberal international order: the role of the renminbi, the BRI, the AIIB, Made in China 2025 and other statist initiatives and tools.
• “Statist” Chinese elites and transnational corporations: integrating into or challenging transnational elite and corporate networks?

The mini-conference hence addresses the topics of alternative paths of development and the question of a redistribution of prosperity, power and identities in a world economy at a time of global fragility and change. Scholars from different disciplines, approaches and backgrounds are invited to explore the rise of state capitalism and statist development models, and their consequences in all areas of socio-economics.

Organizers: Ilias Alami, Bruno Bonizzi, Annina Kaltenbrunner, Kai Koddenbrock, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Jeff Powell

Heterodox economists and political economists have long pointed to the structural subordination of developing economies in the global economy. One way in which this subordination is particularly manifest is in its monetary and financial dimensions. To say that the global monetary and financial system is a hierarchical system is to point to the relations of power, dependency, and violence that are the flipside of monetary and financial relations between creditors and debtors. In financial markets of developing economies, this subordination is reflected in persistent external vulnerability and financial instability and severe macroeconomic policy constraints. So far, this literature has largely focused on developing economies’ monetary subordination and investigated broad structural and macroeconomic processes, with particular emphasis on moments of crises and extreme volatility. We still know very little about the specific, every-day financial relations, practices and mechanisms which reflect developing economies’ subordinate financial integration and distinctly shape the behaviour of economic agents in these countries. Economic geographers and sociologists have presented excellent work on the spatially and socially variegated financial practices, but pay little attention to the macroeconomic, monetary, and political structures underlying them. The recent emerging scholarship on critical macro-finance focuses mainly on the experience of core capitalist economies. This mini-conference brings together the concerns with both macro-structure and agency to conceptualise their interaction in structured global financial markets.

This mini-conference invites both conceptual and empirical contributions of all methodological varieties. We particularly welcome contributions that explore the following issues:

• Manifestations and Drivers of Financial Subordination: What are the specific manifestations of financial subordination? What causes financial subordination? And are there different degrees? Is financial subordination only mediated through macro-variables (e.g. exchange rates, interest rates, capital flows) or are there also “micro” mechanisms (e.g. production of knowledge, legal frameworks, governance rules etc.) which reflect this subordination?
• Conceptualising and Historicising Subordinate Financialization in the Periphery: How can financial subordination be conceptualized? What is the historical development of this process? To what extent is financial subordination about cross-border relations, and to what extent is it a concept that can also be applied to internal financial relations? What is the contribution of different disciplines in analysing financial subordination in the developing world?
• Value, Class and Distribution: What is the relationship between money, finance and the production and distribution of value. Who gets to profit from the way global finance and money work and how? What are the underlying class dynamics that produce and reproduce the global financial dynamics we observe? How do various domestic agents shape the financial subordination?

Finance and Production: How is financial subordination in developing economies linked to their real integration into international production networks? How has the evolution of global value chains increased the pressure of firms in non-core economies to borrow in foreign currencies, and thus their dependency on foreign lenders? In what way does monetary and financial subordination favour corporations centred in core capitalist economies?

Organizers: Jeanne Lazarus, Daniel Mertens, Natascha van der Zwan

In this mini-conference, we hope to explore the complicated new ways in which social and financial policies have become entangled in contemporary welfare states. Particularly, we are interested in the question of how processes of financialization are shaping welfare state development. On the one hand, the contributions to the mini-conference would map the ongoing financialization of the welfare state in contemporary political economies, both historically and comparatively, by focusing on the introduction and expansion of financial tools and mechanisms in public and private welfare provision. On the other hand, we welcome contributions that study how welfare states and other social groupings have debated and introduced new public policies and financial tools that promise to protect against growing financial risks in everyday life. Looking at these promises of protections through the market requires a fundamentally different understanding of the nature of the welfare state than the scholarship’s traditional focus on decommodification.

This mini-conference has several aims. First, we hope to reintegrate scholarship on welfare and finance to come to a better understanding of how the welfare state and the financial system are mutually intertwined, both historically and comparatively. Second, we hope to approach the mini-conference theme using a broader conception of finance: to include not just financial actors and their interest organizations, but also financial ideas and narratives, norms and practices that interact at different scales of the modern polity. Third, we would like to reflect on how the use of financial tools can be considered as a tool to protect household living standards and economic stability. Finally, we hope our mini-conference forms the basis of new conceptualization of welfare state development under financialized capitalism.

We welcome papers with varied disciplinary backgrounds discussing the following issues:

• Variations of finance-welfare interactions across political economies and over time;
• Lineages and linkages of institutional/ideational change in social policy areas and financial systems;
• State experiments with financial and technological innovations to fund and manage welfare programs;
• Political coalitions undergirding or confronting the welfare-finance nexus;
• The distributional and political effects of financial market-based social policies, particularly on class, gender, and race;
• The relationship between financialization and contemporary paradigms of social policy analysis such as marketization, privatization and social investment;
• Histories and narratives on the mutually constitutive nature of the financial system and the welfare state;
• Conceptual and methodological discussions that offer new research strategies to study financialization within the welfare state.