POLIS, Politics and International Studies Global Development and Justice Research Group Global Crisis: Responses and Impacts in the Global South One day workshop at University of Leeds This workshop examines the nature and character of the global capitalist crisis, its origins in Europe and North America and the impact in the Global South. It does so by exploring perspectives that explain the background to the crisis and its consequences focussing on several key areas with the aim of understanding the ways in which the crisis has unfolded within the neo-liberal context, its global dynamics as well as national and local features. Two presentations will map out the background to the crisis and the importance of understanding the context in which it has emerged. These presentations will indicate how global dynamics impact on the world economy and unfold and are mediated by local actors in the global South. Specific case study focuses will then examine the ways in which the crisis impacts on women and ask: What is the significance of a gender analysis of international financial institutions, why is an understanding of gender relations necessary to explore the ways in which the crisis in general emerged and has been described and what implications has the crisis had on women in the global South? Further case study analysis involves the study of the impact of the global crisis in Africa and the Middle East and resistance to it.
POLIS, Politics and International Studies Global Development and Justice Research Group Global Crisis: Responses and Impacts in the Global South One day workshop at The University of Leeds Global Development and Justice Research Group, School of Politics & International Studies Friday 4th March, Room G19, Old Mining Building 10:00 am -11:30 pm Session 1 Hugo Radice (Life Fellow, University of Leeds) The crisis and the global south: from development to capitalism Pietro Masina (Associate Professor of International Political Economy, University of Naples) When the geese stop flying: economic crises and the challenges for industrial upgrading in Southeast Asia 11:30am-11:45 Coffee/Tea break 11:30 am -1:15 pm Session 2 Ruth Pearson (Professor of Development Studies, University of Leeds)) Post-Crisis struggles over the "Reproductive Bargain": Lessons from the South for the North Irene Van Staveren (Institute of Social Studies Erasmus University, Rotterdam) Gender trends during financial crises in developing countries 1:15pm-2:15pm Lunch 2:15pm-3:45pm Session 3 George Joffe (Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), University of Cambridge) The political implications of the developmental crisis in North Africa Peter Lawrence (Professor of Development Economics, University of Keele) The Financial Crisis and sub-saharan Africa 3:45pm-4 pm Coffee/Tea break 4 pm-5:30pm Session 4 Peter Dwyer (Ruskin College, Oxford)
Responses to the Financial Crisis: resistance and social movements in the global south Marianne Maeckelbergh (Leiden University) Property, Investment and Social Movement Responses to the Financial Crisis in New York City
Abstracts Alfredo Saad Filho, Professor of Political Economy, Department of Development Studies, SOAS Crisis in neo-liberalism or Crisis of neo liberalism? This paper argues that neoliberalism is a material form of social reproduction and social rule encompassing the structure of accumulation, international exchanges, the state, ideology and the reproduction of the working class, and which is compatible with a wide variety of policies under a supposedly free-market umbrella. This totality has been destabilized by the crisis, and the neoliberal consensus is attempting to restore the status quo ante as much as possible. This goal is grounded in the realities of social reproduction, and supported by the class alliances which structure, and benefit from, neoliberalism. In sharp contrast with these stabilizing goals, the destabilization of neoliberalism is a project of the radical left, and the spectrum for alliances at the top is very limited. Conversely, the scope for alliances at the bottom of the world s society is, potentially, unlimited. A left strategy to transcend neoliberalism must be based on mass political movements transforming the state and the processes of socio-economic reproduction and political representation that is, imposing a new system of accumulation, including a new configuration of the economy and more equal distributions of income, wealth and power. Pietro Masina, Associate Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Naples L Orientale who has also been Chairman of the European Associations for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) When the geese stop flying: economic crises and the challenges for industrial upgrading in Southeast Asia Southeast Asia was severely hit by a regional economic crisis in 1997/98 while it was quite resilient during the global crisis ten years later. Since the regional crisis economic growth was resumed, but the hopes that a number of mid-income countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) would replicate the miracle of the first wave of Asian industrializers have faded away. Most critically, the regional productive order has become less favorable to technology diffusion and industrial upgrading. Contrary to the rhetoric of the flying geese, Asia has become more similar to other regions in which the spillover effect generated by the FDI is rather limited. Further, successful industrial policy in China is increasing the competitive pressure on Southeast Asian firms in technology intensive productions.
Marianne Maeckelbergh, Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Leiden University Property, Investment and Social Movement Responses to the Financial Crisis in New York City Struggles around housing in the US long pre-date the current crisis, but the financialization of property and the resulting financial crisis and have transformed the backdrop against which these struggles take place. This paper examines how housing becomes a basis for mobilization that brings low-income residents in East Harlem, New York City into internationally mobile social movement networks. These networks foster the mobility of people, practices and ideas to transform 'housing' from an immobile practice into: a mobile, shifting entity experienced as tenuous; a counterfactual demand for immobility; and an expression of a shared desire for self-determination. Through mobilizing frames that turn the demand for decent housing into a struggle against neoliberalism, gentrification and displacement and for collective self-determination, housing struggles transcended sociospatial divisions to build networks that cross borders between deeply entrenched urban 'turfs' and build bridges between housing struggles nationally and internationally. Irene van Staveren, Professor of Pluralist Development Economics, ISS, The Hague Gender trends during financial crises in developing countries The paper looks at several financial crises in the past: the Asian financial crisis, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey financial crises, around the turn of the last century. Data are analysed for a 10-year period around these crises. The data include gender indicators (mostly femalemale gaps) in education, health and the labour market and show lack of progress or even declines in gender equality in these periods of crises in the 8 countries analysed (Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippies, Thailand and Turkey). Moreover, some controls will be added for a more reliable interpretation of the trends. The paper will also look at evidence of FDI volatility and gendered labour market variables as well as tax revenue and finds that increased FDI volatility increases female job vulnerability and reduced tax revenue. Abstracts from Peter Dwyer, to follow shortly.