Research

My most recent paper, 'The problem with "embedded liberalism": the World Bank and the Myth of Bretton Woods', is available as Number 11 in the Centre for Global Political Economy Working Paper Series.

My research is situated in the field of global political economy, with particular focus on the role of the international financial institutions in global governance. I am interested in the relationship between these organisations, financiers, and member states – and the dynamic processes of negotiation among these groups through which hegemonic agendas are developed and realised.

My current research project to explores the importance of the World Bank’s social basis in American finance for its development lending strategies - particularly those associated with the so-called 'post-Washington consensus'. I am interested in the managerial technologies of the institution's governance - and their key role in the Bank's emergence as a central institution of 'neoliberal' governance. This may help to illuminate the relationship between the Bank and its borrowers, with particular reference to the Bank's role in transitions to neoliberalism in the global South, as it becomes increasingly embedded in the everyday life of the societies it aims to support, create, and police.

This project builds on my doctoral thesis, which explored the foundational importance of private American finance for the Bretton Woods order. Exploring four critical moments in the history and pre-history of the World Bank from the 1930s to the 1980s, the study traces the development of a proprietary terrain at the interstices of US financial and state power in which the agency of Bank management became decisive in the construction of the tools and practices of global governance. By illustrating how managerial agency emerges within this framework of social relations, the thesis uncovers the importance of the social anchoring of the Bank in mediating American hegemonic agendas and opens a path for reconceptualising the role of the World Bank in the construction of American hegemony

Forthcoming papers & panels

At the International Studies Association annual conference, Baltimore, 23rd February 2017, I will convene a panel with Matthias Kranke (Warwick University) entitled 'Contested Giants: tracing the diverse challenges to the international financial institutions.'

30^th November 2016: Department of International Relations Research in Progress Seminar, University of Aberdeen: The World Bank and the Myth of Bretton Woods: rethinking embedded liberalism.

Conference papers:

At the Political Studies Association annual conference, Brighton, 22nd March 2016: 'The World Bank and the Washington Consensus: how 'basic needs' became Structural Adjustment'.

At the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute conference, 4-6th July 2016: 'Absorbing Southern Critiques: the World Bank, private finance, and demands for governance reform after the crisis'.

11^th December 2014: 3^rd Annual PhD Course of the Copenhagen-Sussex Network in International Relations: “Embedded Liberalism”: the Myth of Bretton Woods.

13^th October 2014: Research in Progress Seminar, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex: The World Bank and the Origins of the Washington Consensus. Discussant: Prof. Peter Newell.

27^th March 2013: Global Studies PhD Lecture Series, University of Sussex: Finance ‘re-embedded’? The Establishment of the World Bank.