News

 

"Uncertain Futures" book presentation	Karlijn Roex awarded doctorate
Laura Gerken is new doctoral spokesperson	MPIfG 2018 Annual Colloquium in November
New to the IMPRS-SPCE in fall 2018	MPIfG Public Lectures in the winter semester 2018/2019
New staff and guests

 
2018-11-19

"Uncertain Futures" book presentation

In November 2018, MPIfG Director Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk presented their new book, Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy, at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). How do economic actors visualize the future, and how do they make decisions under uncertainty? The two authors explore these questions, starting from the premise that capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and dynamic change that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. Discussing the book on the panel were Adair Turner (Chairman, Institute for New Economic Thinking), Ekaterina Svetlova (University of Leicester), and Waltraud Schelkle (LSE). Jens Beckert has been Director at the MPIfG since 2005 and is head of ist "Sociology of Markets" project area. He was recently awarded the 2018 Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his work on fictional expectations and the dynamics of economic developments. Richard Bronk is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE European Institute and previously spent many years working in the City of London and at the Bank of England. listen to the LSE podcast
read about the book

 

 

 
2018-11-16

Laura Gerken is new doctoral spokesperson

In October 2018, the doctoral researchers from the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) elected  
Laura Gerken as their new spokesperson. She shares the role with Guadalupe Moreno. Laura Gerken has been a doctoral student at the IMPRS-SPCE since 2017.
 

 

 
2018-11-14

New to the IMPRS-SPCE in fall 2018

The MPIfG is delighted to welcome new researchers to the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE): Lukas Arndt, formerly a research assistant at the MPIfG, will be researching wealth and political influence; Sandhya A.S, formerly Research Associate at the Institute for Human Development in Delhi, will be dealing with the sociopolitical significance of employment practices in security companies; Monica Bolelli, formerly at the University of Amsterdam, will be exploring a topic in the field of labor mobility and migration; Annika Holz, who graduated from Freie Universität Berlin, sets out to investigate within the field of comparative political economy; Ebru Ece Özbey, formerly of the Middle East Technical University Ankara, will analyze the political positions of parties in the context of rising radicalism, populism, and euroscepticism, based on the example of Great Britain; Mischa Stratenwerth, formerly of Leipzig University, is investigating the relationship between precarity, populism, and the support for national growth regimes; Agnes Tarnowski, a graduate of the University of Cologne, is studying the role of head teachers and teachers in the social integration of children and young people from immigrant families. The IMPRS-SPCE is a joint PhD program with the University of Cologne and with the University of Duisburg-Essen as associated partner. The research school currently hosts 22 doctoral students.
 

 

 
2018-11-14

New staff and guests

In October 2018, five postdoctoral researchers are beginning their work at the MPIfG: Fabio Bulfone, formerly at the European Institute Florenz (EUI), is researching new forms of industrial policy at the EU peripheries; Mikell Hyman, formerly of the University of Michigan, is interested in discounting politics and the economic valuation in the absence of the price mechanism; Erik Neimanns, formerly with the University of Constance, is exploring the party political scope of growth models; David Pinzur, fomerly of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, is researching the role of predictions in sociotechnical markets; Sidney Rothstein, formerly of Haverford College, Pennsylvania, is looking at tech employers and long-term unemployment in Europe. A new Senior Researcher at the MPIfG is Kostas Gemenis, formerly at the University of Twente. His research interests are in the field of political communication, text analysis, and voting advice applications (VAA). In a current project he is looking at the effects of VAAs on political education, political participation, and voting behavior. Stephanie Mudge, University of California, Davis, was a visiting researcher at the MPIfG in July 2018. During her stay, she was researching the figure of the "Trade Union Economist"; Sebastianus Bruinsma, a doctoral researcher at Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), is investigating voting advice applications (VAA). He will visit the Institute in December 2018.
 

 

 
2018-11-05

Karlijn Roex awarded doctorate

Karlijn Roex was awarded her doctorate at the University of Cologne in October 2018. In her dissertation, "Anomie, Shame, and the American Dream: The Impact of the Economy on Suicide," she explores what effects economic change and marketization have on suicide rates in industrialized countries. Karlijn Roex was a doctoral student at the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) from 2014 to 2018.
 

 

 
2018-10-31

MPIfG 2018 Annual Colloquium in November

The MPIfG’s eleventh Annual Colloquium is being held in Cologne on November 15 and 16, 2018. Researchers and practitioners will discuss in their lectures the causes and effects of "Destabilization and Uncertainty in Politics and Society." In his opening lecture, Armin Schäfer (University of Münster) will look at the transformation of the party system and the crisis of social democracy. MPIfG researcher Lisa Suckert will analyze the new economic nationalism in Great Britain in the wake of the Brexit campaign. In further lectures, Norbert Walter-Borjans (former Finance Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia) and IMPRS doctoral researcher Arjan Reurink will consider the topics of tax evasion and the role of the Netherlands as an offshore financial center. A panel discussion on "Migration as disruption?" with Ferdos Forudastan (Domestic Politics Editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung), Clemens Kroneberg (Professor of Sociology at the University of Cologne), Rolf Mützenich (SPD Member of the German Bundestag and an expert on foreign and security policy, economic cooperation, and human rights), and Wolfgang Uellenberg-van Dawen (spokesperson of the Cologne integration initiative Kölner Runder Tisch für Integration) will consider the role of democratic institutions in the migration debate. In "Author meets Critics," the MaxPo Co-director Jenny Andersson will present her new book "The Future of the World: Futurology, Futurists, and the Struggle for the Post Cold War Imagination" (Oxford University Press, 2018). In discussion with MPIfG Director Jens Beckert, MPIfG Research Group Leader Ariane Leendertz, and Dieter Plehwe of the WZB, she will look back at futures research during the Cold War. The Colloquium is an annual public event hosted jointly by the Institute and the Society of Friends and Former Associates of the MPIfG. more information (in German) and registration

 

 

 
2018-10-30

MPIfG Public Lectures in the winter semester 2018/2019

The MPIfG is hosting a number of public lectures by internationally renowned visiting researchers during the 2018/2019 winter semester. On November 7, Katja Langenbucher, Professor for Private Law, Corporate and Banking Law at Goethe University Frankfurt, will review some basics of economic and legal methodology and explore why transplanting economic thought into the legal realm may seem appealing. On December 4, Cathie Jo Martin, Professor of Political Science at Boston University, will discuss how different cultural beliefs about the role of education have historically contributed to economic disparities between Denmark and Great Britain. In 2019, Bruno Amable, Professor of Economics at the University of Geneva, will join us on January 16 to analyze the power shifts in the French party system, focusing especially on the role of the Socialist Party. On January 23, Mark Roodhouse, Reader in Modern History at the University of York, will share insights from his work on illegal markets in mid-twentieth-century London and black marketeering in 1940s Britain to reveal something of the conditions in which illegal markets emerge, spread, and disappear. Please email info@mpifg.de to sign up.