Biography

BA and MA in International Politics (Scienze Internazionali e Diplomatiche), University of Turin, Italy.

Role

Dphil Candidate and Associate Tutor

Community and Business

Andrea is currently involved in a project on financial education. In the past, he has collaborated as a geopolitical risk analyst with several think tanks.

Activities

Andrea is a member of:

• COST Action IS0902: Systemic Risks, Financial Crises and Credit 

• International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE)

• BISA International Political Economy Group (IPEG)

Moreover, together with Matthieu Hughes, he administers the web site Political Marxism and the Social Sciences, an open platform for research and debates on political marxism.

Andrea has successfully defended his doctoral thesis entitled Deriving a normal country. Italian capitalism and the political economy of financial derivatives.

The work explores the adaptation of financial derivatives in Italy. This is a phenomenon which reflects the distinct trajectories of financialisation across social spaces.

The thesis has been examined by Prof. Oliver Kessler and Dr. Andreas Antoniades.

The work has been supervised by Dr. Samuel Knafo and Dr. Benno Teschke. 

Andrea's main themes of research are: the historical significance of derivatives markets, instruments and actors; the financialisation of public-debt management; the shareholder-oriented transformation of corporate governance; Italian and European affairs. 

These themes are addressed from the vantage point of critical political economy. In particular, Andrea's approach focuses on the agency, power struggles and institutional construction shaping financialisation in historically specific contexts. This method builds primarily on the intellectual traditions of historical materialism (Marx, Gramsci, Lukács) and American pragmatism (Pierce, Dewey, James).

Andrea's future research aims at emphasising the subjective constitution and visual representation of financial phenomena. The entry point to this new research avenue is a study of the pragmatist-inspired tradition of symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer, Goffmann), together with more contemporary works in social studies of finance and visual sociology.

Andrea tutored the following BA courses:

• International Political Economy 1 (course convenor: Prof. Kees Van der Pijl);
• International Political Economy 2 (course convenors: Dr. Kevin Gray, Dr. Ben Selwyn); 
• Rise of Modern International Order (course convenor: Prof. Justin Rosenberg);
• Short Twentieth Century and Beyond (course convenor: Dr. Benno Teschke).

Lagna, Andrea (2012) From 'finanza derivata' to derivatives finance - how and why Italian municipalities got high on interest rate swaps. In: 'The EU after the crisis?' Workshop COST Action IS0902, December 8-9, University of Erfurt. (Submitted)