[CfP] Conference 2016 – Political Economy and Religions Working Group

VII Annual IIPPE Conference

Call for Paper

Panel on “Economics and Alternative Development Models: the National Differences by the Religions”

(Political Economy and Religions Working Group, IIPPE)

 The key question of this panel is to analyse the fundamental role of the religions for the formation of new economic and social proposals, polities and indications as reply to the recent recession of the economic-financial crisis began in 2007. The research of this panel will be an cross-cultural, cross-religious and cross-national comparative analysis of various European and world countries; and to understand like this topic can to find concrete help, support and indications by the religions for a different and various economic and social development inspired at the theory of the common good and of the sustainable growth. The theoretical framework of the panel will develop quantitative and qualitative aspects. In line with this last, the research will value the religions (Christianity, Protestantism and Islam) not only like personal faith, but in particular way like fundamental value and cultural knowledge capable to modify and to condition the human attitudes, in private but above all in public ambit, therefore also from economic and social point of view. The panel will analyse the role and the importance of the birth and of the spread of different and various “religious” economy of the common good and of a more human development, such as: cooperation economy, microcredit, ethical finance, ethical banks, economy of communion, development credits and other, all of religious origin. In this context, the religions become also a culture of integral dimension, social change and primary reality in which is inserted the whole humanity, constituted by relational factors of political, economic, social and institutional nature. In fact, the importance of the religions in the public sphere, also like cultures and attitudes, means that the adherence to their fundamental values (such as dignity of human person, human liberty, private property, and right to the development) becomes a decisive factor for the economic and social development in the ambit of the recent economic-financial crisis. By this vision, the panel aims to understand how actually the recent economic-financial crisis is also a crisis of religious and ethical values that have been excluded from the economic science legislation all over the centuries, from its financial origins to its effects on the real economy. Besides, the panel aims to understand the intrinsic motivations, the cultural aspects and the religious origins of a new thinking that could provide the opportunity for a new approach capable to build a more egalitarian, prosperous, responsible and stable world society.

We encourage abstracts from theoretical and practical point of view. The submit a proposal, go on IIPPE website and fill the online application-form choosing “Political Economy and Religions” Working Group. Moreover send the abstract at the WG Coordinator, Salvatore Drago (drago73salvo@tiscali.it).