Conference Hosts:
Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne
Jenny Andersson, MaxPo, Sciences Po
Olivier Godechot, MaxPo, Sciences Po

Through the long postwar period, crisis was a conjectural phenomenon, exceptional in a normalcy of growth and social progress. Key concepts of the social sciences – indeed, our understanding of democracy, of embedded markets, of enlightened electorates, benevolent political elites, and problem-solving progressive alliances – seem inapt for understanding the current societal upheaval. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, we have witnessed majority alliances breaking down, populism returning on a grand scale both in the Western world and globally, and the new patterns of social mobilization erupting into chaotic and sometimes violent protest. The forces that underpinned the framework of welfare capitalism seem obsolete in the face of financial and political elites that are paradoxically both disconnected from national territory and sometimes in direct alliance with nationalist and populist movements. Politics of resentment, politics of place, and new politics of class interact in ways that we do not yet understand. Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that neoliberalism has spawned authoritarianism. At the same time, these processes are not at all new, but must be put in the context of the socioeconomic and cultural cleavages produced by the shift to neoliberalism since the 1970s.

This international conference with prominent and distinguished scholars addresses the different facets of social destabilization that we observe today. It marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of MaxPo, the Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies. Presentations will analyze different aspects of the overarching phenomenon of social destabilization, trying to identify common threats in the diverse developments currently being observed.

Organizers:
Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne
Tod Van Gunten, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne
Olivier Godechot, MaxPo

Program

Organizers:
Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute of the Study of Societies
Olivier Godechot, MaxPo

In April 2015, Sciences Po and the MPIfG held a joint workshop in Cologne as part of the "States and Markets" series. The workshop on "Politics and Society in the Age of Financialization" was attended by some twenty political and social scientists from Germany and France. Financial markets, their regulation, and the effects of finance on households have become major research fields in economic sociology and political economy. Financialization has been identified as a major trend in socioeconomic development. The financial crisis of 2007 and its repercussions on the economy, the state, and households have sparked interest in political science and sociology to understand the operation of financial markets and possibilities for their regulation. At the workshop in Cologne, scholars from both disciplines presented their findings on the effects of the financial crisis on the economy, state, and society as well as the possibilities for regulating financial markets.

Conference website

Organizer:
Jenny Andersson, MaxPo

This workshop, co-organized by MaxPo and the Futurepol project within the framework of Jenny Andersson’s MaxPo research group, brings together intellectual and economic historians, historians of science, anthropologists, and sociologists around the problem of prediction. It aims to understand what prediction is, the modes of anticipation that it enacts, and the forms of scienticity and non-scienticity it deploys. It also aims to understand prediction as a particular technology of world ordering, market making, and society crafting.

Organizers:
Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Richard Bronk, London School of Economics and Political Science

Modern economies are oriented towards the future, and in many circumstances the future is inherently uncertain. This raises questions about how economic actors form expectations or strategies, assess the likely outcome of their decisions, and learn to exploit the indeterminate future to their advantage. How do economic actors make decisions when the future is indeterminate because it has yet to be created by the innovations they and others will make, or because it is so complex that it cannot be anticipated?

Conference website

Further information