Revolution From Within: Experts, Managers and Technocrats in the Long Transformation of 1989
The programme for our collaborative conference with Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena is now available.
The conference will form Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena’s annual conference and will take place on the 14-15 June 2018 at Friedrich-Sschiller-Universitat Jena. A number of papers will be given by members of 1989 after 1989 and the University of Exeter, including Tobias Rupprecht on Pinochet in Prague: Latin American Neoliberalism and (Post-) Socialist Eastern Europe; James Mark on Europe and its Others:
Re-imagining a Continental Space in Late Socialism; and Ned Richardson-Little on Lawyers, Human Rights and Democratization in Eastern Europe.
The conference will combine perspectives of intellectual and conceptual history, social history of expert cultures, new institutionalist studies, cultural anthropology, history of sciences etc., the focus of the conference is on the creation of expert knowledge, its political implications as well as direct influences during late State Socialism and the liberal democratic regimes after 1989. It will also concentrates on concepts of social management and social control formulated by scientists and experts, political applications of expert knowledge, and interactions between the technocratic, managerial and expert elites, both at home and internationally, as well as the entanglements of political rule and scientific knowledge and expert skills in dynamically changing social contexts.
More information on the conference can be found on the Revolution From Within conference page
Programme available for British Academy conference on Global Neoliberalisms
GLOBAL NEOLIBERALISMS: LOST AND FOUND IN TRANSLATION
A British Academy Conference
Thursday 7 June 2018 and Friday 8 June 2018
The British Academy
10–11 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AH
Charing Cross/Piccadilly Circus Tube
This conference addresses questions about neoliberalism’s intellectual (and other) origins, and why it came to play such a powerful role across the globe. It will develop and extend new work which seeks to understand the rise of multiple neoliberalisms as ideology and practice.
→ Global Neoliberalisms Conference Flyer
Conference Programme
THURSDAY 7th JUNE
8.45-9.15 – REGISTRATION
9.15-9.30 – INTRODUCTION
James Mark, Richard Toye, Tobias Rupprecht, Ljubica Spaskovska
9.30-11 – CIRCULATIONS: THE COLD WAR AND AFTER
Chair: James Mark (Exeter)
Vanessa Ogle (UC Berkeley) Diplomat Capitalists, Spooks, and the spread of Free-Market Capitalism: Revisiting the Global Cold War, 1960s-1970s
Quinn Slobodian (Harvard/Wellesley) White Supremacy and the Neoliberals: South Africa as Laboratory and Limit Case
REFRESHMENTS
11.15- 12.45 – CIRCULATIONS: THE COLD WAR AND AFTER (2)
Tobias Rupprecht (Exeter) Pinochet in Prague: Latin American Neoliberalism and (Post-) Socialist Eastern Europe
Richard Toye (Exeter) and Daisuke Ikemoto (Meiji Gakuin University) Contesting ‘economic miracles’: neoliberal exchange and resistance in the UK and Japan
12.45-1.45 – LUNCH
1.45 – 3.15 – LABOUR, GENDER AND NEOLIBERALISM
Chair: Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (SOAS)
Pál Nyíri (Amsterdam) “Culture talk,” spectres of socialism and neoliberal management techniques in a Chinese-run factory in Hungary
Artemy Kalinovsky (Amsterdam) Abandoning the Factory: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Soviet Central Asian Entrepreneur
REFRESHMENTS
3.30- 5.00 – LABOUR, GENDER AND NEOLIBERALISM (2)
Pun Ngai (Hong Kong University) Neoliberalism in Crisis: Producing new subjects of Migrant Labour in China
Bernhard Rieger (Leiden) Making Homo Oeconomicus? Unemployment Policy Since the Sixties in Transatlantic Context
FRIDAY 8th JUNE
9-10.30 – INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: BETWEEN THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL
Chair: Ljubica Spaskovska (Exeter)
Alexander Kentikelenis (Oxford) The Making of Global Neoliberalism: The IMF, Structural Adjustment, and the Clandestine Politics of International Institutional Change
Jennifer Bair (Virginia) The Long 1970s: NIEO, Neoliberalism and the Right to Development
10.30 – 10.45 – REFRSHMENTS
10.45- 12.15 – INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: BETWEEN THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL (2)
Stephanie Decker (Aston Business School) The World Bank in Ghana, 1970-1985 – Neoliberalism and institutional voids
Jörg Wiegratz (Leeds) Embedding the neoliberal moral order: The political economy of moral change in Uganda
12.15-1.15 – LUNCH
1.15-2.45 – SOCIALISM/POSTSOCIALISM AND THE RISE OF NEOLIBERALISM
Chair : Artemy Kalinovsky (Amsterdam)
Johanna Bockman (George Mason) Recovering the Socialisms in Neoliberalism: Anti-Colonial Banking, Anti-Capitalist Markets, and Revolutionary Structural Adjustment
Julian Gewirtz (Harvard Kennedy School) The Transnational Roots of China’s Socialist Market Economy
2.45 -3.00 – REFRESHMENTS
3.00 – 4.30 – SOCIALISM/POSTSOCIALISM AND THE RISE OF NEOLIBERALISM (2)
Susan Bayly (Cambridge) Neoliberalisms in Asian global dialogue: The perspective from late-socialist Vietnam
David Priestland (Oxford) Embedding Neoliberalism: Politics, Markets and Morality in the Czech Republic and Russia
4.30 -5.00 – CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
For further information and registration please go to: The British Academy Event Page
All welcome. Registration fee payable.
[Top]Reinterpreting National Ideology in the Contemporary Urban Space of Astana
Dr Nelly Bekus, alongside Kulshat Medeuova (Eurasian National University, Astana, Kazakhstan) has recently published the article Reinterpreting National Ideology in the Contemporary Urban Space of Astana in the Urbanities Journal. This forms part of a Special Issue: The Dreams and Nightmares of City Development Vol. 7 · No 2 · November 2017.
The article analyses the way in which the Soviet legacy has been combined with practices of public representation of national ideology in the space of the new capital city of Kazakhstan, Astana. It examines how cultural and political elites exploit various archaic elements of the traditional imagery of the nation in the context of modern state-building. Referring to various examples in cityscape the article aims to show how the national ideology handles tradition not as a coherent corpus of ‘inheritance’, but as a reservoir of potential symbols, which can be used creatively for the fashioning of a national image of the capital city both in the international and in the domestic arena.
→ Download article: Reinterpreting National Ideology in the Contemporary Urban Space of Astana
[Top]Registration Open for our British Academy Conference: Global Neoliberalism, 7-8 June 2018
Global Neoliberalism: Lost and Found in Translation
British Academy Conference
7-8 June 2018
The University of Exeter and 1989 after 1989 will be holding a British Academy Conference on the 7-8 June 2018 entitled Global Neoliberalism: Lost and Found in Translation. This conference aims to provide a truly global account of the rise and entrenchment of the modern neoliberal order. Contributors will consider how neoliberal ideas travelled (or did not travel) across regions and polities; and analyse the how these ideas were translated between groups and regions as embodied behaviours and business practices as well as through the global media and international organisations. As the fate of neoliberalism appears in question across many regions, it is an opportune moment to make sense of its ascendancy on a global scale.
Convenors:
Professor James Mark, University of Exeter and 1989 after 1989
Professor Richard Toye, University of Exeter
Dr Ljubica Spaskovska, University of Exeter and 1989 after 1989
Dr Tobias Rupprecht, University of Exeter
Speakers include:
Professor Jennifer Bair, University of Virginia
Professor Susan Bayly, University of Cambridge
Professor Johanna Bockman, George Mason University
Professor Stephanie Decker, Aston Business School
Mr Julian Gewirtz, University of Oxford
Professor Daisuke Ikemoto, Meijigakuin University
Professor Artemy Kalinovsky, University of Amsterdam
Dr Alexander Kentikelenis, University of Oxford
Professor Pun Ngai, Hong Kong University
Professor Pal Nyiri, University of Amsterdam
Professor Vanessa Ogle, University of California, Berkeley
Professor David Priestland, University of Oxford
Professor Bernhard Rieger, University of Leiden
Professor Quinn Slobodian, Wellesley College and Harvard University
Dr Jorg Wiegratz, University of Leeds
Registration:
A registration fee is payable at the time of booking. For further information and details of how to book please see the British Academy website.
Dates:
7-8 June 2018
Times:
Opens 9am on the 7 June, closes 5pm on the 8 June
Location:
The British Academy
10-11 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AH
Standard Admission: £95 for both days; £50 for one day
Early Bird booking (before 31 January 2018): £75 for both days; £40 for one day
Concessions: £36 for both days; £20 for one day
Would you like to work on 1989 after 1989 and Socialism Goes Global? Vacancies for Postdoctoral Research Associates available – apply now!
Supporting the work of Professor James Mark, 1989 after 1989 and the AHRC Socialism Goes Global, we have 3 vacancies for Postdoctoral Research Associates with immediate start.
The 12 month fixed term post with 1989 after 1989 and based in Exeter, UK will focus on the fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe in global perspective, focusing on political, economic and cultural themes.
Socialism Goes Global, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, have two Postdoctoral Research Associate vacancies (fixed term for 9 months, based in Exeter), the first addressing themes of gender and labour and the second focusing on the themes of war, peace and authoritarianism.
Deadline for applications is 17 January 2018
Interviews anticipated late January 2018
About Exeter University
We are a Russell Group university boasting a vibrant academic community with over 21,000 students. Ranked in the top 1% of universities in the world, 98% of our research is rated as being of international quality and focuses on some of the most fundamental issues facing the world today. We encourage proactive engagement with industry, business and community partners to enhance the impact of research and education and improve the employability of our students.
The Posts
The College of Humanities wishes to recruit for three posts
- Postdoctoral Research Associate to support the work of the project 1989 after 1989: Rethinking the Fall of State Socialism in Global Perspective
http://1989after1989.exeter.ac.uk/This full-time Leverhulme Trust-funded post is available immediately on a fixed term basis for 12 months. The research will address the fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe in global perspective, focussing on political, economic and cultural themes. - Postdoctoral Research Associate to support the work of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)-funded project Socialism Goes Global. Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’
http://socialismgoesglobal.exeter.ac.uk/This full-time post is available immediately on a fixed term basis for 9 months, research will focus on the themes of gender and labour. - Postdoctoral Research Associate to support the work of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)-funded project Socialism Goes Global. Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’ http://socialismgoesglobal.exeter.ac.uk/This full-time post is available immediately on a fixed term basis for 9 months, research will focus on the themes of war, peace and authoritarianism.
Please indicate in your application which post(s) you are applying for (candidates are welcome to apply for all three).
About You
The successful applicants will have the skills to carry out research at historical archives; be able to carry out historical analysis on archival material (with guidance); possess a reading capacity in one or more languages of the region, to a high academic standard; be able to report effectively on research progress and outcomes; be able to write academic texts; and to communicate complex information, orally, in writing and electronically in academic English.
Applicants will possess a relevant PhD (or be nearing completion) or possess an equivalent qualification/experience in a related field of study. They will be able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of research methods and techniques needed to work within these research projects. Experience of work in related research fields would be beneficial.
Interviews are expected to take place in late January 2018.
What We Can Offer You
Salary will be from £28,936 per annum pro rata within the Grade E band (£26,495 – £33,518) depending on qualifications and experience.
- Freedom (and the support) to pursue your intellectual interests and to work creatively across disciplines to produce internationally exciting research;
- Support teams that understand the University wide research and teaching goals and partner with our academics accordingly
- An Innovation, Impact and Business directorate that works closely with our academics providing specialist support for external engagement and development
- Our Exeter Academic initiative supporting high performing academics to achieve their potential and develop their career
- A beautiful campus set in the heart of stunning Devon
Please ensure you read our Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role.
To view the Job Description and Person Specification document please click here.
To apply and view the full job advert, please follow the link to the Exeter University Vacancies Board and Application Portal.
For further information please contact:
Professor James Mark, Principal Investigator 1989 after 1989 and Socialism Goes Global – J.A.Mark@exeter.ac.uk
Natalie Taylor, Leverhulme Trust 1989 after 1989 Project Co-ordinator (works Monday-Wednesday) N.H.Taylor@exeter.ac.uk
Catherine Devenish, AHRC Socialism Goes Global Project Co-ordinator (works Thursday and Friday) C.Devenish@exeter.ac.uk
[Top]Entangled Transitions Special Issue in Contemporary European History
As a result of our successful conference on Entangled Transitions, the Contemporary European History journal has published a special issue (Volume 26, Issue 4, November 2017) featuring a number of presented papers.
It features an introductory piece written by Professor James Mark, Kim Christieans and Jose Faraldo on Entangled Transitions: Eastern and Southern European Convergence or Alternative Europes? 1960s–2000s as well as The Spanish Analogy’: Imagining the Future in State Socialist Hungary, 1948–1989 written by Professor James Mark.
Other articles include:
- ‘Communists are no Beasts’: European Solidarity Campaigns on Behalf of Democracy and Human Rights in Greece and East–West Détente in the 1960s and Early 1970s
By Kim Christiaens - Entangled Eurocommunism: Santiago Carrillo, the Spanish Communist Party and the Eastern Bloc during the Spanish Transition to Democracy, 1968–1982
By Jose M. Faraldo - From Enemies to Allies? Portugal’s Carnation Revolution and Czechoslovakia, 1968–1989
By Pavel Szobi - Tourism and Europe’s Shifting Periphery: Post-Franco Spain and Post-Socialist Bulgaria
By Max Holleran
→ The Entangled Transitions Special Issue can be read online via Cambridge University Press Cambridge Core
The “Children of Crisis”: Making Sense of (Post)socialism and the End of Yugoslavia
Ljubica Spaskovska’s article The “Children of Crisis”: Making Sense of (Post)socialism and the End of Yugoslavia has just been published in the Journal of East European Politics and Societies, Volume 31, Issue 3, August 2017. It forms part of a special section on the Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak.
Ljubica’s article traces certain mnemonic patterns in the ways individuals who belonged to the late-socialist Yugoslav youth elite articulated their values in the wake of Yugoslavia’s demise and the ways they make sense of the Yugoslav socialist past and their generational role a quarter of a century later. It detects narratives of loss, betrayed hopes, and a general disillusionment with politics and the state of post-socialist democracy that appear to be particularly frequent in the testimonies of the media and cultural elites. They convey a sense of discontent with the state of post-Yugoslav democracy and with the politicians—some belonging to the same generation—who embraced conservative values and a semi-authoritarian political culture. The article argues that an emerging new authoritarianism and the very process of progressive disillusionment with post-socialist politics allowed for the emergence and articulation of such alternative, noninstitutionalized individual memories that, whilst not uncritical of the Yugoslav past, tend to highlight its positive aspects.
→ East European Politics and Socieities, Volume 31, Issue 3, August 2017
[Top]Raluca Grosescu article on Judging Communist Crimes in Romania published
Raluca Grosescu’s latest article has been published in the International Journal of Transitional Justice. The article entitled Judging Communist Crimes in Romania: Transnational and Global Influences, shows how the current shifts in Romanian jurisprudence have been built upon, and have drawn inspiration from, a recent global convergence towards the use of ICL for addressing the crimes of dictatorial regimes and the obstacles to their prosecution, such as amnesties or statutory limitations.
Abstract
In 2016, over 25 years after the fall of the communist regime, the Romanian Supreme Court of Justice convicted for the first time two former military officials for political crimes perpetrated in the 1950s, the harshest repressive period of the previous dictatorship. The verdicts marked a radical break with the prior legal approaches to prosecuting communist crimes in this country inasmuch as international criminal law (ICL) was now employed in order to overcome impunity. This article shows how the current shifts in Romanian jurisprudence have been built upon, and have drawn inspiration from, a recent global convergence towards the use of ICL for addressing the crimes of dictatorial regimes and the obstacles to their prosecution, such as amnesties or statutory limitations. It emphasizes the importance of noncoercive exogenous influences in enabling changes in the Romanian process of dealing with the past.
[Top]The Other Globalisers conference programme now available
Join the 1989 after 1989 research team for our conference on the “Other Globalisers” – how the socialist and the non-aligned world shaped the rise of post-war economic globalisation. Based at Exeter, this conference is the second in a series of events exploring how processes and practices that emerged from the socialist world shaped the re-globalised world of our times.
The globalisation of the world economy has most often been portrayed as the final triumph of a neoliberal international order led by the West. By focusing on the socialist and the non-aligned world, this conference, by contrast, aims to rethink the histories of postwar globalisation by addressing forces and models of global economic interdependence other than those of Western capitalism. Acknowledging that actors from these worlds could be contributors to the emerging neoliberal consensus, as well as to other forms of regional economic integration and global trade that survive to this day, we hope to encourage an interdisciplinary dialogue between scholars using different approaches to global interconnectedness, and/or working on a variety of regions.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Day 1 – July 6
The Upper Lounge, Reed Hall, University of Exeter
8.45-9.15 Welcome Drinks
9.15-9.30 Introduction by the Organisers
9.30-11.30 Panel 1: Chronologies of Socialist Globalisations
Discussant: Wolfgang Knöbl (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung)
Marc-William Palen (University of Exeter) – Marx and Manchester: The Socialist Foundations of Post-1945 Globalisation
James Mark (University of Exeter) – Alternative? Socialist? Writing Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union into Postwar Globalisation
Christina Schwenkel (University of California – Riverside) – The Afterlife of Global Socialism: Technology and Mobility in the Postcolony
11.30-11.45 Refreshment Break
11.45-13.00 Panel 2: Global Integration
Discussant: Federico Romero (European University Institute)
Angela Romano (University of Glasgow) – Competing Plans of Pan-European Cooperation: European Community’s Policy and Soviet Proposals During the 1970s Globalization
Besnik Pula (Virginia Tech) – From Reform Socialism to Transnational Capitalism: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe
13.00-14.30 Lunch Break
14.30-16.30 Panel 3: Global Institutions Without Imperialism
Discussant: Richard Toye (University of Exeter)
Johanna Bockman (George Mason University) – Financial Globalisation Through Socialist and Non-Aligned Banks
Max Trecker (Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin) – Globalisation by Import Substitution? The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the Global South
Vlad Pașca (New Europe College) – Global Advocacy or Self-Interested Relativism? Socialist Romania, International Organizations, and the Quest for Economic Development (1960s-1980s)
Ljubica Spaskovska (University of Exeter) – The Non-Aligned, the UN and the Defeat of the ‘New International Economic Order’
16.30-16.45 Coffee Break
16.45-17.45 Round Table Discussion
Johanna Bockman (George Mason University)
Wolfgang Knöbl (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung)
Federico Romero (European University Institute)
19.00 Drinks Reception
20.30 Conference Dinner
Day 2 – July 7
Innovation Centre, University of Exeter
8.45-9.30 Welcome Drinks
9.30-10.45 Panel 4: Neoliberalism and the Socialist and Nonaligned Worlds
Discussant: James Mark (Exeter)
Patrick Neveling (School of Oriental and African Studies) – The New International Division of Labour before the New International Economic Order: Special Economic Zones and Neoliberal Globalisation since 1947
Tobias Rupprecht (University of Exeter) – “Neoliberal” Ideas in the Communist Periphery
10.45-11.00 Refreshment Break
11.00-13.00 Panel 5: Africa and Alternative Globalisations
Discussant: Patrick Neveling (School of Oriental and African Studies)
Alanna O’Malley (Leiden University) – The Road to UNCTAD: The Exploration of Economic Sovereignty by African Countries at the United Nations, 1958-1962
Darius A’Zami (Renmin University of China) – Extra-Liberal Interdependence: The Land Commission, Heterodox Globalisation and its Roots in Sino-Tanzanian Relations in the Cold War
Theodora Dragostinova (The Ohio State University) – The Second World in the Third: Bulgarian Notions of Economic and Cultural Development in Nigeria, 1976-1982
Pavel Szobi (European University Institute) – Was Angola the “Czechoslovak Africa?” The Obstacles of the ČSSR Support for the MPLA Government Between 1975 and 1992
13.00-14.00 Lunch Break
14.00-16.00 Panel 6: Resources and Experts
Discussant: Piers Ludlow (LSE)
Ned Richardson-Little (University of Exeter) – East Germany and the Failed Dream of Global Socialist Oil Solidarity
Jan Zofka (University of Leipzig) – Coal as the Other Oil: East German Technical Experts and Industrial Expansion in the Socialist World of the 1950s
Shuxi Yin (Hefei University of Technology) – Sino-Soviet Rubber Cooperation, 1950-1953
Andrew Kloiber (McMaster University) – Brewing Global Socialism: Coffee, East Germans and the World, 1949-1989
16.15-17.00 Concluding Discussion
If you would like to attend the Other Globaliser’s conference on the 6-7 July, please contact the Project Co-ordinator, Natalie Taylor – N.H.Taylor@exeter.ac.uk
[Top]
Ljubica Spaskovska’s Monograph Now Available: The Last Yugoslav Generation
Manchester University Press have now published Dr Ljubica Spaskovska‘s new book – The Last Yugoslav Generation: The Rethinking of Youth Politics and Cultures in Late Socialism.
Her monograph examines the development of youth culture and politics in socialist Yugoslavia, focusing specifically on the 1980s. Rather than examining the 1980s as a mere prelude to the violent collapse of the country in the 1990s, the book recovers the multiplicity of political visions and cultural developments that evolved at the time and that have been largely forgotten in subsequent discussion. She argues that the youth of this generation sought to rearticulate the Yugoslav socialist framework in order to reinvigorate it and ‘democratise’ it, rather than destroy it altogether.
Ljubica Spaskovska is an Associate Research Fellow working on our research project 1989 after 1989 at the University of Exeter. Her research maps the history of the end of Yugoslavia’s global engagements not only as a subject/phenomenon associated with political/diplomatic history, but also as a broader societal project.
→ Purchase The Last Yugoslav Generation
[Top]