Matthias Thiemann, Professor of European Politics at Sciences Po (Paris) and this year's Scholar in Residence at the MPIfG, will give a three-part lecture series on shadow banking at the Institute. In the series entitled “Technocrats, State Agency, and the Rise and Continued Expansion of the Shadow Banking System,” he will analyze how technocrats and government agencies have influenced the rise of shadow banking. The focus will be on the initial set-up of this system in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s and on the failure to contain it after the 2008 financial crisis. The lectures will take place at 16:30 on April 29, May 6, and May 13, 2025.

The EU aims to become climate-neutral by 2050. To achieve this, Europe wants to build a green, sovereign battery industry. However, in Hungary, Europe's pioneer in the battery industry, production is dependent on foreign investment, ecological and labor exploitation, and Russian fossil fuels. Pálma Polyák talks to the podcast radio station detektor.fm about the paradox of the European battery industry.

How can we make sense of the resurgence of the far right across the world? In a new MPIfG Discussion Paper, Elizabeth Soer examines an ideal yet overlooked case of ethno-nationalist neoliberalism – apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. This case reveals neoliberalism’s relationship to colonialism and its contribution to the perpetuation of white rule. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Soer argues that the contemporary far right is not a backlash against neoliberalism, but a robust continuation of it.