The global crisis of the last years of the “noughties” has cruelly exposed the deficiencies not only of mainstream economics but also of broader strands of political economy from across the social sciences more generally that have promoted neoliberalism. Media and academic commentary has focused on the inability to predict the crisis and the corresponding inadequacies of the economics profession, expecting a sort of self-criticism and reconstruction from within the discipline, whilst the inadequate treatment of the economic and the economy across the social sciences has been less harshly exposed to criticism.

In the case of economics, this has led to a spirited deference of the existing frame of analysis (What crisis? Bubbles don’t exist) and to the assertion that the discipline’s principles remain adequate but they need to be better and more realistically applied, possibly with the incorporation of other behavioural elements and techniques. Similar minor modifications to analytical frameworks have emanated from the international financial institutions and national treasuries, etc, if to some extent to allow for more discretion in policy rather than fundamental rethinks. Accordingly, the degree of rethinking within mainstream economics is strikingly underwhelming as, indeed, is the rethinking informing policy responses where neoliberal support to globalisation of finance remains to the fore, with dramatic adjustments at the expense of working people and the poor.

Although, then, the urgent issues brought about by the global crisis have made such questioning of mainstream economics both necessary and inevitable, there are also wider implications for a more inclusive reconstruction of economic understanding across the social sciences as a means to inform both academic and policy-making circles.

This conference will probe much deeper into the multiple crises of economic science, informed by the perspectives of political economy that have long been ignored and marginalised by the mainstream, whether deriving from critical political economy and heterodox economics or from the treatment of the economy from across the social sciences as a whole. The ultimate aim is to explore new avenues in promoting and developing critical political economy in view of recent developments. As well as engagements with economics and the economic, we are seeking individual contributions and proposals for panels that address Neoliberalism and the Crises of Economic Science through:

• the critical weaknesses of the mainstream in its continuing evolution;
• critique of recent developments within mainstream economics such as game theory, experimental economics, behavioural economics, neuroeconomics, complexity theory, etc;
• the challenges to, and potential for, heterodox economics and Marxist political economy;
• the lessons that can be gained from the history of economic thought;
• the role of methodology in the critique of mainstream economics and neoliberal political economy in providing for alternatives;
• the relation between economics and other social sciences in view of economics imperialism: economics and politics, economic history, philosophy, sociology, law, etc;
• the role of interdisciplinarity in promoting alternatives to the mainstream;
• the role to be played by critical political economy within social science;
• the ways in which an alternative economics can engage with and promote both activism and alternative theories, policies and ideologies;
• how to locate the world economy and the role of the (neoliberal) (nation-) state;
• the relationships between finance and accumulation and between economic and social reproduction;
• the analytical location of class, power and conflict.

We welcome both individual submissions and proposals for panels (or streams of panels), with the latter ideally already incorporating a number of proposed submissions but allowing for others to be added as appropriate.

The deadline for submission of both individual abstracts of papers and proposals for panels is the 28th of February 2011(On line submission on http://www.iippe.org/wiki).

Potential participants will be notified by the 21st of March. The deadline for the submission of full papers is the 1st of May. Early submissions, even if only provisional, are essential both to avoid disappointment and to help in the appropriate allocation of papers to designated panels and streams that will themselves be strengthened through solicited contributions and the plenaries.

• Neoliberalism and the Crises of Economic Science - this page in PDF form