Blog
2024
The Lehman Trilogy: Political Economy on the Stage
Chris Saltmarsh - 19 December 2024Chris Saltmarsh reviews Sam Mendes’ stage production of the Lehman Trilogy. He discusses its treatment of political economy issues including the development of American capitalism, financial crisis and cultural change.
‘The economy’, the ideational, whiteness and re-election of Donald Trump
Jessica Eastland-Underwood - 17 December 2024As many consider the economic factors that contributed to the Trump presidency, political economy scholars should pay as much attention to the ideational as the material. While inflation provides a parsimonious explanation for the 2024 US presidential election, everyday understandings of ‘the economy’ suggest that race was as salient a factor in the final outcome.
Part 5: A View to a Kill? Counter Accounting and the Potential to Leverage Violence for Change
David Yates - 12 December 2024In a globalised world, is it ever possible to know the violence that lies behind the curtain of our perceived realities and consumptive lifestyles? Can counter accounting help to redress the balance, and help individuals make more responsibility-informed lifestyle choices? Part of our series 'The production of organised violence'.
Part 4: Research-policy-industry network and normalisation of militarism
Barış Çelik - 9 December 2024European Security Studies has traditionally focused on the functional outcomes of defence and security policies, but it should shift towards a more critical approach that considers its silence about the realities of organised violence, as well as the economic and institutional entanglements shaping the field. Part of our series 'The production of organised violence'.
Part 3: Conceptualising dual-use technologies and companies
Elena Simon - 5 December 2024With wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and rising tensions between the US and China, the proliferation of arms and their enabling technologies is back on the agenda. To fully capture the breadth of the means of violence a broader approach to technologies and a closer analysis of the 'dual-use' technology dilemma is necessary. Part of our series 'The production of organised violence'.
Part 2: Green promises, violent realities: how large-scale renewables perpetuate violence in vulnerable regions in Yucatan Mexico
Sandra Barragan Contreras & James Jackson - 2 December 2024Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula reveals that renewable energy projects perpetuate forms of hidden violence against local ecosystems and indigenous communities. In a global push for large-scale solar and wind deployment, lives, livelihoods and cultures are being erased. Part of our series 'The production of organised violence'.
Part 1: Extraction, infrastructure, and the coloniality of violence: Why land matters
Vicki Reif-Breitwieser and Joanna Tidy - 28 November 2024We explore the relationship between land and violence in extractive and infrastructure projects. In doing so, we highlight the centrality of land in the (re)production of the many tangible, as well as unseen, forms of violence that underlie past and present capitalist development. Part of our series 'The production of organised violence'.
Introduction: The production of organised violence
Elena Simon, Remi Edwards, Vicki Reif-Breitwieser, Joanna Tidy, Sandra Barragan Contreras, James Jackson, Baris Celik and David Yates - 25 November 2024This series, inspired by a SPERI workshop in June 2024, explores the intersections between economy and the exercise of organised violence.
Moral panics and “anti-gender” politics: what can (queer) political economy tell us about global struggles over gender and sexuality?
Ellie Gore - 14 November 2024Based on recently published research in Ghana, Ellie Gore argues that contemporary contestations over LGBTQ+ rights are entwined in colonial and neoliberal political economy. A queer political economy approach is therefore useful for understanding the shifting transnational landscapes of “anti-gender” politics.
What impact do terrorist attacks have on our shared sense of identity?
Georgios Efthyvoulou, Harry Pickard & Vincenzo Bove - 12 November 2024New research shows that higher exposure to terrorism strengthens identification with Britain but has no effect on identification with its constituent nations.
GB Energy: The Future of Energy Governance?
Harvey Wood - 7 October 2024The international community and its constituents find themselves in an awkward situation regarding climate change politics and energy governance. Labour should commit to progressive energy governance that meet the demands of the present situation and that renews Britain’s presence in international energy politics.
Has Keir Starmer healed Britain's 'fractured union'?
Scott Lavery - 30 September 2024Review - Fractured Union: Politics, Sovereignty and the Fight to Save the UK by Michael Kenny.
City fortunes: The sources of wealth and international homeownership of the world’s urban wealth elite
Rowland Atkinson, Katie Higgins & Jonathan Bourne - 5 September 2024We reveal the dominant industrial sectors for particular cities, key differences in the levels of inherited/self-made wealth, and the geography of their additional homes. What are the implications of new data to reveal the roots of urban fortunes around the world?
Stricter ESG regulations may increase greenwashing risks and investor backlash
Erhan Kilincarslan & Jiafan Li - 27 August 2024As regulations around Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices intensify, companies face heightened scrutiny. While these regulations aim to promote transparency and accountability, they may inadvertently increase the risk of greenwashing and provoke investor backlash against ESG initiatives.
Beyond the two-child benefit cap: a long-term strategy against poverty?
Benjamin Stokes - 22 August 2024The ministerial taskforce set up in July should consider targeted aims to lower housing, energy and food costs. That will take investment – but it’s the only way to sustainably turn the tide on acute inequality in the UK.
Trade union repression in the Costa Rican bananera
Remi Edwards - 6 August 2024Despite industry and national commitments to protect Freedom of Association in the Costa Rican banana sector, recent fieldwork suggests collective rights remain precarious due to cost-cutting pressures of the global supply chain combined with conflictual local industrial relations. Lee este blog en español.
Lessons in Power: what can the new Labour government learn from the last one?
Michael Jacobs and Mems Ayinla - 9 July 2024A brand new podcast series from 'SPERI Presents...' invites former advisors and ministers from the 1997-2010 Labour governments to reflect on lessons for Starmer and his Cabinet. Listen on Spotify.
How the fallout of Liz Truss’s premiership narrows economic discussion in British politics
Dillon Wamsley - 26 June 2024Despite being the shortest serving Prime Minister in British history, Liz Truss’s premiership has cast a much wider shadow over British politics. In the leadup to the 2024 election, the economic discussion has been dominated by a conservative macroeconomic consensus consolidating in the aftermath of her downfall.
The election arms race is on - but what role for Yorkshire steel?
Joseph Ward and Gregory Stiles - 7 May 2024Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have both been touting their defence and security credentials in recent weeks. Here we test the feasibility of this ‘election arms race’ and examine the role the steel sector might play in relation to it, both nationally and locally throughout South Yorkshire.
The politics of embedding a new economic consensus
Tony Payne - 15 April 2024Rachel Reeve's Mais Lecture charts a new economic course for Labour - but what will it take to embed a new economic consensus?
Why Sinoscepticism will remake British politics
Liam Stanley - 25 March 2024‘Sinoscepticism’, which we can define as a political position defined by opposition to the increasing power of China and its ruling Communist Party, prompts questions: why has this position become so prominent and what effects will it have? This piece is based on newly published research by the author.
Why the NHS is in crisis: an answer at three levels
Benjamin Stokes - 18 March 2024If we can only face looking back so far as the Covid pandemic and the political dynamics set in motion from 2010 - highly significant as they are - we’ll be missing the full story.
Materialising the immaterial, via the Belfast peace walls
Michael Livesey - 05 February 2024During the ‘Troubles’, the British Army and Government built ‘peace walls’ in Northern Irish cities to separate predominantly Catholic/nationalist from predominantly Protestant/unionist neighbourhoods. These walls imprinted ‘immaterial’ ideas about the relationship between social class and violence within ‘material’ structures of city space.