Hierarchies of Development听podcast: Season 2

In collaboration with EADI and King鈥檚 College, London, 黑料社区 has launched Season of the Hierarchies of Development podcast.The podcast offers long format interviews focusing on enduring global inequalities. Conversations focus on contemporary research projects by critical scholars and help us understand how and why structural hierarchies persist. Join hosts Ingrid Kvangraven (KCL/DE) and Basile Boulay (EADI) for this series of discussions on pressing issues in the social sciences.

The podcast was developed with editing support from Jonas Bauhof. Listen to old episodes and subscribe to get updates on new episodes听(you can choose your preferred platform).

In the first episode is on monetary hierarchies we speak to Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima (University of Leeds, UK) about hierarchies in money and finance, core-periphery dynamics of inflation, the role of the International Monetary Fund in assessing debt sustainability, and much more. Listen on Spotify with the link below.

Top posts of 2022

Although many commentators hoped 2022 would be a ‘return to normal’, this year has been anything but that. On 黑料社区, contributors have been grappling with many fundamental issues, ranging from social reproduction, labour exploitation and unrest, the many failuers of contemporary development policies, decolonisation, the food regime, new debt crises and industrialisation. Among the most widely read posts are those that challenge hegemonic thinking about the crises unfolding this year on both the left and right. For example, Farwa Sial’s interview with Max Ajl, Bikrum Gil and Tinashe Nyamnuda challenges the uncritical use of sanctions by the West in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and G眉ney I艧谋kara’s critique of polycrisis challenges what he deems to be superficial and ultimately inadequate efforts on the left to understand the contemporary crisis of capitalism. Amidst all the hype about returning to normal, contributors on DE also recognize both that pre-pandemic times were also deeply unequal, exploitative, and extractive, which calls for a deeper appreciation of critical scholarship that can help us understand the forces that produce this inequality even in allegedly normal times, and that the crisis responses have been highly unequal across the world.

This year we also launched a new podcast where you can listen to critical scholarship on development and economics in a conversational format. Season 1 is now out and you can listen to episodes on environmental issues, mining, labour, and global value chains.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2022:

  1. Sanctions and the changing world Order: Some Views from the Global South (Farwa Sial interviews Max Ajl, Bikrum Gil and Tinashe Nyamunda)
  2. Race to the bottom: Competition between Indonesian food delivery platform companies for cheap gig workers (by Arif Novianto)
  3. (After) Neoliberalism? Rethinking the Return of the State (by Ishan Khurana and John Narayan)
  4. Neoliberal capitalism and the commodification of social reproduction, from our home to our classroom (by )
  5. Feminist political economy, land, and decolonisation: Rama Salla Dieng in conversation with Lyn Ossome (by Lyn Ossome and )
  6. Beating around the Bush: Polycrisis, Overlapping Emergencies, and Capitalism (by G眉ney I艧谋kara)
  7. Marx and Colonialism (by Lucia Pradella)
  8. Who鈥檚 in control? Wall Street Consensus, state capitalism, and spatialised industrial policy (by Seth Schindler, Ilias Alami and Nick Jepson)
  9. On the perils of embedded experiments (by Jean Dr猫ze)
  10. Ignorance is Bliss: Why should we study Leontief? (by Thair Ahmad)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of our around 40 posts on the blog this year, so please have a browse through the rest of the blogs too. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here. In 2023, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation?: Become a contributor.

Top posts of听2021

It’s a wrap – the tumultous year of 2021 is almost behind us. As usual, it was a year full of critical anlyses on the blog that can help us make sense of the multiple crises unfolding before our eyes. This year, the most read posts were to a large extent those that explicitly challenge orthodox thinking about economics and development and provide alternative ways of framing the complex problems we face as a society. This may well reflect some important churning that is currently taking place in development economics. The top posts expose the limits to mainstream economics and global development discourses, debunk dominant views of the Washington Consensus and Chile as a ‘Free Market Mirace’, and excavate helpful insights from Marx, Sam Moyo, and scholars of imperialism. They also provide concrete ways of understanding contemporary issues such as intellectual monopoly capitalism and the gig economy.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2021:

  1. We Need to Talk about听Economics (by听Paulo L. dos Santos听and听No茅 Wiener)
  2. Rethinking the Social Sciences with Sam听Moyo (by Praveen Jha,听Paris Yeros听and听Walter Chambati)
  3. The Washington Counterfactual: don鈥檛 believe the Washington Consensus听resurrection (by听Carolina Alves,听Daniela Gabor听and听Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven).
  4. Debunking the 鈥楩ree Market Miracle鈥: How industrial policy enabled Chile鈥檚 export听diversification (by Amir Lebdioui)
  5. The Changing Face of Imperialism: Colonialism to Contemporary听Capitalism (by听Sunanda Sen听and听)
  6. Monetary policy is ultimately based on a theory of money: A Marxist critique of MMT (by 听and听Nicol谩s Aguila)
  7. Intellectual monopoly capitalism and its effects on听development (by Cecilia Rikap)
  8. The Uncomfortable Opportunism of Global Development听Discourses (by Pritish Behuria)
  9. The partnership trap in the Indonesian gig听economy (by Arif Novianto)
  10. From Post-Marxism back to听Marxism? (by Lucia Pradella)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of the over eighty posts on the blog this year. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here (see also our book symposum on Max Ajl’s new book A People’s Green New Deal here).

In 2022, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation?: Become a contributor.

Top posts of 2020

We know, we know, most people would rather forget everything about 2020. However, before you go into 2021, we want to remind you of some of the important analyses that emerged this year, including insights that had not been adequately appreciated before. These include insights about the links between ecology and capitalism, the fragility of economies that rely heavily on precarious labor, the role of the state in shaping health systems, and how structural racism is embedded in the economy. We were honoured to be able to host important contributions to these debates on the blog this year, along with other posts on economics, politics and development.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2020:

  1. A crisis like no other: social reproduction and the regeneration of capitalist life during the COVID-19 pandemic (by Alessandra Mezzadri)
  2. The currency hierarchy and the role of the dollar as world money (by Giovanni Villavicencio)
  3. Is Degrowth an Alternative to Capitalism? (by G眉ney I艧谋kara)
  4. Abolition Will Not Be Randomized (by and Casey Buchholz)
  5. The return of State planning (by Andr茅 Roncaglia and )
  6. Privatization and the Pandemic (by Jacob Assa)
  7. Haemorrhaging Zambia: Prequel to the Current Debt Crisis (by Andrew M. Fischer)
  8. Pandemics and the State of Welfare (by Rahul Menon)
  9. The Economics of being 鈥業nteresting鈥: Many kinds of exclusions (by Farwa Sial)
  10. Time for a Rethink on the Worth of Work (by Paulo dos Santos)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of the eighty posts on the blog this year. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here. In 2021, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation? Become a contributor!

Top posts of 2019

Keep Calm and Blog on

As the year comes to a close, we look back on our most read posts of the year. It’s been a busy year, with over 40 blog posts and two blog series (on financial inclusion and state capitalism) published. The readership of the blog has grown rapidly, the editorial board has expanded, and this year the听blog was included in the for the first time.

Most read posts of 2019:

  1. Why so Hostile? Busting Myths about Heterodox Economics (by Ingrid H. Kvangraven and Carolina Alves)
  2. The Curious Case of M-Pesa鈥檚 Miraculous Poverty Reduction Powers (by , and Nicholas Loubere)
  3. Using Marx as a Pejorative to Defend the Ease of Doing Business: Analysing The World Bank鈥檚 attack on CGD (by Dissenting Voices)
  4. The Green New Deal: Whither Capitalism? (by G眉ney I艧谋kara and )
  5. Neoliberalism or Neocolonialism? Evaluating Neoliberalism as a Policy Prescription for Convergence (by Rahul Menon)
  6. Rethinking the Failures of Mining Industrialisation in the African Periphery (by Ben Radley)
  7. An Alternative Economics Summer Reading List, 2019 (by members of )
  8. Philanthrocapitalism: How to Legitimize the Hegemony of the Rich with a 鈥淕ood Vibes鈥 Discourse (by Jorge Garcia-Arias)
  9. Mind the Gap: Addressing the Class Dimension in Higher Education (by Lorena Lombardozzi)
  10. Advocates of the SDGs have a monetarism problem (by Rick Rowden)
In 2020, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation? Become a contributor!

BLOG SERIES: Inclusive or Exclusive Global Development? Scrutinizing Financial Inclusion

inclusive-exclusive-event.jpg

鈥淔inancial inclusion is a key enabler to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity.鈥

鈥淸Policies of financial inclusion] serve to legitimize, normalize, and consolidate the claims of powerful, transnational capital interests that benefit from finance-led capitalism.鈥

– 听.

Financial inclusion has been high on the agenda for policy-makers over the past decade, including the G20, international financial institutions, national governments and philanthropic foundations. According to Bateman and Chang (), it鈥檚 the international development community鈥檚 most generously funded poverty reduction policy. But what lies behind the buzzword? How can the two quotes above portray such starkly opposing views?Read More »

Top posts of 2018

KEEP-CALM-BLOG-ON.jpg

While many of you may want to forget about 2018, we promise there are some good things that happened that you might want to remember. Here are the听top 10 most read posts of the year. Happy new year and enjoy!

  1. An Alternative Economics Summer Reading List (by听Carolina Alves,听,听听and听Ingrid H. Kvangraven)
  2. Not just r > g but r + q >> g: Piketty meets Ricardo in the long run of Indian history (by Rishabh Kumar, California State University, San Bernardino)
  3. Historicising the Aid Debate: South Korea as a Successful Aid Recipient (by Farwa Sial, School of Oriental and African Studies)
  4. Consuming development: Capitalism, economic growth and everyday听life (by Arve Hansen, University of Oslo)
  5. The World Bank Pushes Shadow Banking in the Name of听Development (Daniela Gabor, University of the West of England, Bristol, and others).
  6. Keynes or New-Keynesian: Why Not Teach Both? (by Rohit Azad,听Jawaharlal Nehru University)
  7. Think Positive, Climb out of Poverty? It鈥檚 Just Not So Easy! (by Svenja Flechtner, University of Siegen
  8. Revisiting Hirschman鈥檚 Tunnel Effect and Its Relevance for China (by Wannaphong Durongkaveroj,听Australian National University)
  9. Why I refuse to rethink development 鈥 again (and again, and again鈥) (by Julia Sch枚neberg, University听of听Kassel)
  10. Marx’s Birthday and the Dismal Science (by听Carolina Alves, University of Cambridge, and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, University of York)

Want to be a contributor to this blog too next year? Shoot an e-mail to Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven and she’ll guide you through the submission process.

 

Top posts of 2017

kc-read.jpg

2017 was a dramatic year in many ways. But before it completely flies by, let’s not forget the important contributions made to the development debate on this blog this year! Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2017:

  1. Kicking Away the (Statistical) Ladder (Jacob Assa, UN)
  2. An Economic Strategy for The Gambia? (Sanjay Reddy, The New School)
  3. Is 鈥業mperialism鈥 a Relevant Concept Today? A Debate Among Marxists (Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, The New School)
  4. 80 Economic Bestsellers before 1850: A Fresh Look at the History of Economic Thought (Erik Reinert, Tallinn University of Technology)
  5. Re-centering Inequality in African Economic History (Alden Young, Drexel University)
  6. e-Book Launch: Can Dependency Theory Explain Our World Today? (editorial)
  7. The Financialization of Africa鈥檚 Development (Richard Itaman, SOAS)
  8. Towards a Critical Pluralist Research Agenda in Development Economics: Some Bricks from Berlin to Build Upon (Svenja Flechtner,听Freie Universit盲t Berlin, Jakob Hafele, Vienna University, and Theresa Neef, Freie Universit盲t Berlin)
  9. 200 Years of Ricardian Trade Theory: How Is This Still A Thing? (Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, The New School)
  10. Advancing a Research Agenda of Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency (Adel Daoud, University of Cambridge)

Read More »