Argument

For more than a century now, states have intervened strongly in the face of crises in capitalism to deal with their social and economic consequences. States invented new models of regulation (Keynesianism) to deal with capitalist contradictions, socialized the huge losses booked by banks and large firms, changed policy instruments to correct market failures, changed labor market regulations, or created new markets while supporting creative destruction. Crises are highly conducive to thinking about periods and varieties of capitalism, about regulation crises and dynamics, and about the role of the state; they also raise massive tensions and open the floor to political debates, which may call the legitimacy of the state into question and create political pressures.

The 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing recession demonstrate both the power and the vulnerability of the modern state. States were severely buffeted by the economic crisis, and most advanced democracies were forced to take dramatic and extensive policy measures, many of which involved hugely expensive public interventions into the private sector, only some of which have been paid back. Such measures threw the state’s centrality into sharp focus. Although major recessions have challenged state strength and capacity, they have not called into question the role of the state as the primary agent of policy initiatives, nor its legitimate authority to respond to economic crises.

The current crisis is no exception: active policy responses have been deployed across the world, from China and Brazil to the USA; in Europe, states are paying a huge price to support their banks, while the European fiscal crisis has led to unprecedented austerity measures in many southern and western European countries, which are under intense pressure from other states and from market actors. The current crisis has incited the rapid development of myriad state interventions, both internally and in relation to other states.  The 2013 SASE Annual Meeting seeks scholarship that documents and explains how states act in the face of crises, as well as the comparative consequences of those actions and the Implications for the restructuring of the relations between states and markets. Such accounts may investigate the role of material interests, the competence of state institutions (such as central banks), the inadequacy or effectiveness of state regulatory institutions, and the effect of long term global shifts in power and resources from the West to the East.

But there are also more fundamental changes occurring within states. Research in classical political economics by scholars such as W. Streeck, P. Hall, B. Jessop, R. Boyer and M. Mann has pointed out the profound restructuring states have undergone as a result of globalization, changing societies, and other phenomena such as the worsening of long-term fiscal crises or implementation failures. Some aspects of the state are growing (auditing, penalizing), while others are in retreat. Some scholars talk about a new phase of the Weberian state; others point to the emergence of neo-liberal governmentality. SASE 2013 also seeks contributions to this ongoing debate over the definition of the state and its role, as contributing to the construction of more market-oriented societies, or to the contrary, resisting and protecting against market pressures.

Program Directors

• Roberto Pedersini (roberto.pedersini@unimi.it)
• Isabella Mares (im2195@columbia.edu)

Local Organizers

• Marino Regini (chair),
• Gabriele Ballarino,
• Daniele Checchi,
• Maurizio Ferrera,
• Massimo Florio,
• Roberto Pedersini,
• Ida Regalia,
• and Renata Semenza

Submission guidelines

Submissions can be made in English or Spanish, but please note that SASE’s principal working language is English.

Paper submissions in Spanish will be processed the Spanish language network unless otherwise specified by network or mini-conference organizers.

Paper submissions and session proposals must be made through our online submission system.

For technical reasons, you must log in to the SASE website to access the submission system. If you have had a username and password for www.sase.com any time in the past three years, it should still be valid on our site.

If you cannot remember it, click the "forgot password" link next to the login box.

All sessions, with the exception of mini-conferences, are organized through SASE’s research networks, honing the focus of each year’s interdisciplinary topic around some dozen themes.

Submissions for sessions and papers are made through these research networks.

SASE network organizers welcome both full sessions and individual papers.

All mini-conferences require the submission of a full paper by June 1, 2013.

Abstracts for submissions to regular networks should be no longer than 500 words; abstracts for submissions to mini-conferences should be no longer than 1000 words.

No author may be associated with more than two papers, regardless of whether the papers have co-authors.

No paper may be submitted twice to different networks or miniconferences.

Descriptions of networks and mini-conferences as well as contact information for their organizers are available on the SASE website and in a list at the bottom of this document.

The deadline for submitting proposals is January 15, 2013.

Acceptance notifications will be sent by February 15, 2013.

The conference will take place in Milan University from 27 to 29th of June 2013

Stipends and travel Awards

To recognize the work of graduate students and encourage their attendance at the annual meeting, SASE will be offering stipends of $500 to student authors as an award for outstanding papers. SASE members and non-members are encouraged to submit their students’ papers for consideration for this award, and students may also apply on their own. In case of multiple authors, the stipend will be shared among those authors attending the meeting. Conference fees are waived for all student stipend prizewinners.

To be considered for an award, papers must meet the following criteria:

• Be no longer than 5,000 words (word count should appear on the first page of the paper)
• Address a socio-economic issue or issues
• Display originality in at least one of the following ways:
• State new ideas/facts/concepts/interpretations
• Examine critically existing ideas/facts/concepts/interpretations
• Develop or adapt the ideas of others
• Demonstrate understanding of relevant socio-economic and other literature
• Be well-written and clearly presented: they should include an abstract, introduction, conclusion, and appropriate sub-sections and employ a recognized system for notes, references, and citations.

Papers may be written in English or Spanish. Submission of an excerpt of an MA or Ph.D. thesis is permitted.

If you wish to apply for this award, you must upload your paper. To do so, go to www.sase.org and follow the procedure for making a submission. You must go through the standard process for submitting a paper, but in order to be considered for the graduate student stipend, you must also upload your paper.

To be considered for a graduate student stipend, you must submit your paper by January 15, 2013

Travel awards will be granted to up to five candidates selected for outstanding papers. Prizewinners will receive $500 to attend the SASE Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, and their conference fees will be waived. Submissions must be in English, be no longer than 10,000 words, and be of publishable quality. Scholars based in high-income countries are ineligible to apply.

To be considered for the award, all submission materials must be received by January 15, 2013.