[p2p-research] Conference on the future of capitalism (critical approach)

[Ryan Lanham]

10th EURAM Conference, Back to the Future May 19-22, 2010, Tor Vergata
University, Rome, Italy

Call for Papers - Business in Society SIG Track 30:

Organization After Empire? State, Corporate and Popular Reactions and
Resistances to the Crises of Capitalism Co-organisers

Stephen Linstead (contact) Stefano Harney                      Garance
Marechal
University of York      Queen Mary University London  University of
Liverpool
sl510 at york.ac.uk        S.Harney at qmul.ac.uk             g.marechal at liv.ac.uk

Description

Critical historical approaches to the study of capitalism and political
economy and the dark side of globalization (including the sources of the
current crisis) have been revitalized by Boltanski and Chiapello's The New
Capitalism (1999 and 2005) and Hardt and Negri's Empire (2000) and Multitude
(2004). Empire became a best-seller by reinterpreting the past and arguing
that the historical objectives pursued by political and military means are
now pursued by social, cultural and economic means, and global hegemony at
this level extends from previous more obviously aggressive historical
imperial forms. Hardt and Negri argued that boundaries become increasingly
blurred between cultural politics, political economy, cultural economy and
political aesthetics, as culture becomes commodified and plasticized and
processors of both information and materials shape and may dominate
processes of government. After the Second Gulf War it at first appeared that
the Corporation, rather than the State, was the prime determinant of
political agendas and that military means to achieving these were as
important as ever. But more recently, since the Credit Crunch, the State's
role has been temporarily revitalized, in response to the often desperate
entreaties from those who for two decades had been most firmly resistant to
state intervention in business affairs. Is this really a return to the past
or is it a fundamental change in relations, and power balance, between
parliamentary bodies, Wall Street and the High Street ? Has the march of
Empire been stalled, reversed, or just slowed? Do we know enough about the
new workings of Empire to even hazard a guess? Since the Second World War,
globalization as a process has been encouraged under the auspices of the UN,
the GATT, the World Bank and more recently the WTO, exerting pressure on
both developing and developed nations to structure their economies in
particular ways. Since the 1970s this has reflected monetarist approaches to
state control and intervention, away from welfare. During the 1990s, efforts
were made to curb the worst effects and promote the benefits of
globalization. The UN recently launched the Global Compact, and with several
universities and business schools, national management associations and
academies, and corporations the UN has formed the Global Forum for Business
as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB), and the Principles of Responsible
Management Education (PRME) initiative. Whilst the Global Forum announces
its 2009 objective as a "task of historic significance", are these efforts
just another ideological elaboration of the mask that keeps the world safe
for capital?

In this stream we seek to build on past work introducing the ideas of the
new critique of capital into organization studies to ask deeper questions
about the nature of the current crisis of capitalism, the recent history of
the corporation and its influence, the nature of global collusions between
corporations and governments, the role of educational institutions, the
realities and possibilities of resistance, the future role and power of the
state and its potential forms - and the implications of all this for
organizations and organizing. We are keen to encourage both new reflections
grounded in philosophy and organization theory as well as empirical and
historical analyses of the ways in which empire and corporate histories
intersect, particularly through ever more sophisticated processes of
commodification. We encourage methodological diversity in progressing
debates, and welcome discursive analyses as well as quantitative approaches
if clearly grounded in well articulated ideas. Contributions that utilize
analyses of forms of popular culture, including feature films, documentaries
and press coverage, are also welcome.

Submission and other conference details can be found on the conference
website

www.euram2010.org
.
Deadline for papers (20 pages) is December 7th 2009 - full specifications at

http://www.euram2010.org/r/default.asp?iId=EGKLJF


-- 
Ryan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090905/8e7976d2/attachment.html>