Members Meeting Minutes (Hague, 2013)

The Hague IIPPE Conference was a big success in all respects: it was the biggest conference organised by IIPPE alone (the Paris conference which was bigger was a joint conference) with about 360 paper submissions, about 250 participants from more than 30 countries and 6 continents and 70 parallel sessions. We want to thank very much Susan Newman, Peter van Bergeijk and their team of local organisers at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of the Erasmus University who have done a magnificent job in organising this conference. Also our many thanks go to Al Cambpell and Maria Dafnomili for putting together our conference programme with efficiency and skill.

There were three plenaries all related to the theme of the conference: Political Economy, Activism and Alternative Economic Strategies. The first one had Susan George, the well-known writer and activist, as keynote speaker with Bridget O’Laughlin of ISS as discussant. The other two plenaries were on the theme of the conference both in Europe and Outside Europe with academic representatives of political parties in Europe (the Netherlands, Germany and Greece) and Stuart Holland on Europe in the first plenary, and with speakers on China, South Africa and Venezuela in the second plenary. This conference had two important innovations. One was the one day Training Workshop which was organised one day prior to the conference and was very successful with about 50 people attending, and the discussions during the lunch break on themes such as the comparison of the Turkish and the Brazilian revolts, and the International Moscow Economic Forum.  At the conference there were representatives from many other organisations such as the European Progressive Economists Network, the EuroMemo Group, the Brazilian Association of Political Economy, and the Russian International Moscow Economic Forum.

1. Amended Constitution (Kate Bayliss, kb6@soas.ac.uk)

Our amended constitution has been voted with only one abstention.  There was one further amendment proposed which was rejected.  Our thanks to Kate Bayliss who has done most of the recent work. With the new constitution, once the officers are elected, IIPPE will become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered in the UK. It was agreed that the elections will be held through e-voting by Christmas (see below item 9).

2. IIPPE 2014 Conference (Pietro Masina, pietro.masina@gmail.comand Michela Cemirele, michela.cerimele@gmail.com)

The 2014 IIPPE Conference will be hosted by the L’Orientale University in Naples, Italy. We have already cooperated with L’Orientale University in the past. They organised our Second International Research Workshop in Political Economy in Procida with great success. The conference will be held in the third week of September. Tentative dates are 16-18 September 2014 (Tuesday-Thursday). The Conference theme will be “The Crisis: Scholarship, Polices, Conflicts and Alternatives”

Pietro Masina will lead the Conference Local Organising Committee together with Michela Cemirele. Alfredo Saad Filho (as59@soas.ac.uk), Al Campbell (al@economics.utah.edu) and Niels Hahn (nh40@soas.ac.uk) will form the Conference Programme Committee. Alfredo will draft a Call for Papers which will be circulated soon.

3. IIPPE Annual Conference 2015

One tentative suggestion has been made for the 2015 IIPPE Conference to be held in Berlin with Trevor Evans taking the lead.

4. Political Economy Training Workshop

(Simon Mohun: s.mohun@qmul.ac.uk and Elisa van Waeyenberge: ew23@soas.ac.uk)

Two Training Workshops have been organized so far this year, a two day Workshop in March in London (with about 70 participants) and a one day Workshop in the Hague, one day prior to the conference (with about 50 participants). Both were very successful with positive responses from participants, and many suggestions for the future. We therefore are planning to expand our activities over the next year. We have tentatively scheduled a two-day event in London in March 2014, and will be investigating the possibilities of training workshops in the North of England (Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester conurbation) and internationally in Berlin, Paris, and The Hague.

5. Working Groups (Susan Newman: newman@iss.nl)

Working groups provide much of the intellectual content of IIPPE. We currently have 22 Working Groups which are more or less active. Working groups have been active in organising panels/streams at each of the IIPPE Conferences. This year 11 working groups organised panels for the conference which is the highest number ever: These include the Financialisation, the Neoliberalism, the Social Capital, the Political Economy of Institutions, the Urban and Regional Development Political Economy, the Marxist Political Economy, the Poverty, the Privatisation, the Marxist Dependency Theory, the Environmental and the Minerals Energy Complex/Comparative Industrialisation Working Groups. Thanks to the coordinators of these Working Groups for their work. Also the European Progressive Economists Network and the EuroMemo Group co-organised two very successful panels. We want to thank them very much for their cooperation.

Also we are in the middle of an effort to sort things out especially with Working Groups that  have been inactive for sometime in the direction of their becoming active again or, if not, of discontinuing their functioning. Also it was agreed that there will be a separate meeting of Working Group Coordinators in our annual conference starting with Naples.

6. IIPPE newsletter (Susan Newman and Hannah Bargawi, hb19@soas.ac.uk)

The IIPPE Newsletter comes out twice a year. It is currently being edited by Susan Newman. Hannah Bargawi has agreed to become the co-editor.

We welcome contributions for the next Newsletter which will come out in November. Please send calls for papers, announcements, short opinion pieces and summaries of research to newman@iss.nl or hb19@soas.ac.uk or iippe@soas.ac.uk.

7. IIPPE Finances (Ben Fine: bf@soas.ac.uk)

IIPPE currently enjoys an accumulated surplus of about 5000 Euros, derived from a number of small sources not least membership fees over the past two conferences. Following the passing of our amended constitution and with the election of our officers and the appointment of a Treasurer, IIPPE’s finances will be regularised with its own bank account, etc.

8. Pluto/IIPPE book series on “Political Economy and Development”.

(Editors: Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis, d.milonakis@uoc.gr)

The fourth volume of our series is out. Details at http://www.iippe.org/wiki/IIPPE_Book_Series

We welcome proposals for new volumes, particularly those that are not focused on development to give the Series a wider ethos than currently.

9. IIPPE Officers Elections Committee

In addition to Heesang Jeon (hidarang@gmail.com), Alexander Abreu (alexjabreu@gmail.com), Al Campbell (al@economics.utah.edu) and Aberlando Marina (abmf60@me.com) who were elected at the 2012 HM Conference IIPPE Membership Meeting, another two members have been added to the Committee, Jan Toporowski (jt29@soas.ac.uk) and Lucia Pradella (lucia.pradella@unive.it).

It was agreed that an attempt will be made to hold the elections electronically by Christmas. The Elections Preparatory Committee has already done a feasibility check of the Helios System a few months ago and, as Heesang Yeon reports, has concluded that this service is suitable for our use. It is a free but highly secure e-voting service.

10. International Moscow Economic Forum Conference 2014 (Alexander Buzgalin, buzgalin@mail.ru)

It was agreed that, in the context of our cooperation, IIPPE will be a Supporting Organisation of next year’s Conference of the International Moscow Economic Forum which will take place in Moscow in March 2014. Also the event will be advertised in our website and our Newsletter and IIPPE members are encouraged to participate and present papers. Local organisers can cover part of participants’ expenses.

11. IIPPE Interim Coordinator (Dimitris Milonakis, d.milonakis@uoc.gr)

Dimitris Milonakis has been re-elected as the IIPPE Interim Coordinator until the governing bodies of IIPPE according to its amended constitution, the Executive Committee and the Council, have been elected.


No Replies to "Members Meeting Minutes (Hague, 2013)"


    Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.