Systems of Accumulation

SYSTEMS OF ACCUMULATION

Call for Paper and Panel Proposals

For “Beyond the Crisis”, First International Conference in Political Economy organised by the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy in conjunction with the Greek Political Economy Association

Rethymnon, Crete, 10-12 September 2010

A key challenge for scholars working within critical and Marxist traditions of political economy is making the transition from an understanding of abstract categories such as class and value to an understanding of the more concrete historical forms of class relations and capital accumulation in particular time and place.

The idea that particular Systems of Accumulation evolve over time has been developed in order to understand specific forms of capital accumulation, the role played by the state and finance, and how this impacts more widely on economy and society. There are a number of ways in which a system of accumulation may be conceived. These include the Regulation School and its concept of a Regime of Acumulation (Boyer, 1990), commonly used with reference to understanding neoliberalism; the Social Structures of Accumulation approach (Kotz, McDonough and Reich 1994); as well as the study of South African Political Economy as a specific system of accumulation developed by Fine and Rustomjee (1996).

The idea remains underesearched, however, despite is potential relevance and application to a number of debates across the social sciences. These include understanding the relationship between the national and the global within capitalism which forms an important part of debates about globalisation; discussions of so-called ‘varieties of capitalism’; or debate about market and bank based systems of finance.

The aim of this call for papers and panel proposals is to link together researchers in the field to further this research agenda both theoretically and in its application to specific cases of historical and contemporary relevance. This is a large area of research, and as such we welcome papers of an exploratory nature as well as those which are more developed. In particular we would welcome papers and proposals around the following themes:

* Consideration of different theoretical approaches to Systems of Accumulation;

* Addressing theoretical gaps in the literature on Systems of Accumulation, particularly in relation to Systems of Accumulation and Value Theory;

* The application of a Systems of Accumulation approach to specific case studies, both historical and contemporary

Please send abstracts and panel proposals to susan.newman@wits.ac.za and samantha.ashman@wits.ac.za by the 31st March 2010.

For more information about the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) go to http://www.iippe.org

Sam Ashman
Senior Researcher
Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development (CSID)
School of Economics and Business Sciences
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Private Bag 3, Wits 2050
South Africa
E: Samantha.Ashman@wits.ac.za
T: +27 - 11 - 717 – 8026; F: +27 - 11 - 717 – 8136; C: +27 - 72 - 558 - 0139

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