Other News

Dr Christopher Holmes has been awarded a prestigious Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust, which is due to commence on the 1st October 2014 for 12 months.

The Fellowship will allow Dr Holmes to complete a research monograph entitled 'Visions of perfectibility: state, market and alternatives in the formation of economic ideas'. The book will examine the way in which public economic discourse has become trapped within a notion of opposition between state and market, unpacking the history of ideas that gave rise to this situation as a set of ‘visions of perfectibility’. It will observe how state-market opposition has constrained debate on economic management in the post- 2008 landscape, before exploring various sites for re-imagining the purpose of the economy outside of the bounds of state and market.

Philippe Schmitter will be visiting the department on May 13th and 14th to lead a master class and also give a talk as part of the departmental seminar series.

Philippe Schmitter is Professor Emeritus at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy. He was a member of the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences from 1996 to 2004, having spent ten years as a faculty member at Stanford University and fifteen years at the University of Chicago.

Schmitter has conducted research on comparative politics and regional integration in both Latin America and Western Europe, with special emphasis on the politics of organized interests. With Gerhard Lehmbruch, he edited Trends toward Corporatist Intermediation and Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making. He is the co-author (with Guillermo O’Donnell) of Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (4 vols.) and is currently completing a book on Essaying the Consolidation of Democracy. In recent years, he has devoted increasing attention to the emerging polity of the European Union, first in a co-authored book on Governance in the European Union (with Gary Marks, Fritz Scharpf and Wolfgang Streeck) and later in a book entitled: How to Democratize the European Union ....and Why Bother? With Alexandre Trechsel, he has written a Green Paper for the Council of Europe on The Future of Democracy in Europe.

Schmitter has been the recipient of numerous professional awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim in 1978. He was also a vice-president of the American Political Science Association. He received the award for lifetime achievement in European politics by the ECPR in 2008, the award for lifetime achievement in the study of European integration by EUSA, the Mattei Dogan Prize of the IPSA, and the Johan Skytte Prize by Uppsala University – all in 2009.

Philippe Schmitter’s Departmental Seminar, entitled “Thoughts on the Future of 'Real-Existing' Democracy,” will be taking place on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 from 12 pm – 1.30 pm in S0.19, Social Sciences. Light sandwiches will be served from 11.30 am in the foyer outside of the seminar room. All welcome.

For further information on the master class, open to PAIS MA, Ph.D. Students, and post-docs on a first come first serve basis, please see this webpage.

A new research paper by Ben Clift - SPERI Paper No.10 –The Hollande Presidency, the Eurozone Crisis & the Politics of Fiscal Rectitude.

You can now download the next in the SPERI Paper series Paper No.10 – The Hollande Presidency, the Eurozone Crisis & the Politics of Fiscal Rectitude by Ben Clift (SPERI Honorary Research Fellow & Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick).

The paper analyses the political economy of the Hollande Presidency in France, evaluating the economic policies pursued by the French Socialist President since May 2012. It explains the limited coherence and success of economic policy under Hollande in terms of constraints operating at domestic and European levels, and through credibility concerns of financial markets. Domestically, it highlights difficulties managing the presidential majority, notably due to presidentialised factionalism within French Socialism. At the European level it explores disagreements within the Franco-German relationship over which economic ideas should underpin macroeconomic policies to tackle Europe’s recession and efforts to resolve the Eurozone crisis.

Download the paper, free, here http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2014/03/20/speri-paper-ben-clift/

Professor Christopher Hughes has been quoted in an article appearing in The Christian Science Monitor entitled 'Hot summer for Japan and China disputes'.

Rt Hon. Justine Greening MP, Secretary of State for International Development will be visiting the University of Warwick on 1st May 2014 to deliver the first GRP International Development Annual Public Lecture.

Please click here for more information and to register.