Projects
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Austerity and Anti-Austerity Beyond Neoliberal Capitalism
University of Michigan Conference 2019 During the global economic crisis of 2008 many observers predicted that austerity economics would be discredited and abandoned, but over the ensuing decade it demonstrated surprising resilience. In fact, austerity (both the theory and the policy) has long been debunked by scholars and resisted by a variety of social actors, yet it has persisted in the face of these challenges. I am one of the organizers of an upcoming conference at the University of Michigan that will explore the history of opposition to austerity, both uncovering heretofore overlooked forms of resistance and using those conflicts to better understand the nature of austerity itself. Though typically associated with neoliberalism, austerity has appeared as a central theme within a variety of economic frameworks. Our working assumption is that austerity should not be seen exclusively as a feature of neoliberalism or late capitalism. Instead, we seek to rethink this ideology as a more pervasive economic doctrine enacted and challenged at different historical junctures across different economic and political systems. |
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Over the past decade there has been a new wave of scholarship revealing the commonalities that linked capitalist and socialist economies across what has been traditionally called First, Second, and Third World. Our collaborative effort brings together an interdisciplinary field of scholars who will expand on this bourgeoning reappraisal of economic systems. Increasingly, we are coming to realize that capitalism and socialism shared a great many features in these regions—including the foundational assumptions that drive doctrines of austerity.
Along these lines, our conference will emphasize how austerity and anti-austerity clashed both within and beyond liberal capitalism, seeking to better integrate the temporal and ideological binaries of political economy: pre-industrial and industrial, capitalist and socialist, communist and post-communist, developed and underdeveloped. We envision to investigate the potential of anti-austerity movements to topple governments, collapse political orders, and to affect other forms of change in society, both in direct and visible ways as well as through protracted and less obvious struggles. This will also incorporate the failed attempts and arrested possibilities to displace austerity as a dominant socioeconomic formation. |
Our Sponsors
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ccapotes@umich.edu
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Phone |
(734) 764 6305 (Dept)
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Address |
University of Michigan
Department of History 1029 Tisch Hall 435 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003 |
© 2018 Cristian Capotescu
Photo Credits Dimitris Michalakis
Photo Credits Dimitris Michalakis