POLITICAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (PSA) ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2013
DEVELOPMENT POLITICS SPECIALIST GROUP
Cardiff, UK
March 25-27, 2013


LIST OF PROPOSED PANELS


(1)	Regional social policy: cross-border social standards to reduce inequity and poverty
Convenor: Pia Riggirozzi, University of Southampton ([log in to unmask])

Like all forms of governance, regionalism is a form of coordination across and between different policy areas. Regionalism is organised in different forms of institutional architecture that open different kinds of political engagement; and thus different types of activism. Despite a wide array of political economic projects of varying compositions, capabilities and aspirations, expectations of what regional governance can deliver have been evaluated primarily in terms of management, trade liberalisation and trade integration. It is not surprising then that despite a wealth of literature offering normative references to the capacity of regional frameworks to provide social development, this has largely remained a rhetorical aspect in the way regionalism has unfolded and has been studied. However, recent developments in regional formations across the globe are seeking social and political integration to address issues of poverty and inequality and ways to mitigate trans-border social issues and harms. The facilitation of cross-border labour mobility has featured as a principal policy aim, but increasingly regional policy cooperation is emerging beyond strict regionalisation of commercial markets. Examples include regional cooperation on communicable diseases, the referral of patients between member states, access to medicines (UNASUR, SADC, CARICOM) and regional food security programmes (SAARC, ASEAN). This panel is seeks to discuss social policy in relation to regional governance exploring empirical linkages between regional integration, social policy and social development, and academic links between regionalism and development studies.


(2)	How Resources Shape the Global Political Economy: Commodity Booms and Developmental Spaces in a Multipolar World Order
Convenor: Jojo Nem Singh ([log in to unmask])

This panel explores the changing global political economy from the perspective of resource production. In some ways, scholars have begun to recognise the uniqueness of the current boom, in particular (a) the economic opportunities being given to resource-rich states due to the longevity of the boom as well as (b) the new political dynamics emerging from the globalization of political decision-making. This panel seeks to critically examine the implications of the changing political economy of resource extraction within the global-domestic nexus. We encourage papers that deal with issues on the shifting levels of political authority, state-market relations in the context of the current export bonanza, the growing importance of corporate actors in international governance initiatives, the new roles of multilateral institutions, the role of emerging powers and resource-rich states in response to the economic crisis in the core economies, and the rise of new types of states in the post-Washington Consensus context.