Received from Dr. Robert Yee (Wadham College, University of Oxford)

Event Overview

Conference taking place 7-8 April 2025, St. John’s College, University of Oxford. Since the financial crisis of 2007/08, international rivalries, nationalist movements, a global pandemic, and the existential threat of climate change have destabilised the global economic order. From an historical perspective, such strains have many precedents in the tumultuous twentieth century. We seek to bring together scholars for a two-day conference at the University of Oxford to explore the history of global economic governance. We are particularly keen to discuss how national governments, international organisations, businesses, financial institutions and workers all responded to shocks and instability, and how these responses shaped the global economic order.

Many recent historical works have explored the history of political economy, capitalism and global governance from multiple perspectives. There has been important historical research into the effects of wars and conflicts on the global economic order; the birth of global economic development initiatives; the ideological foundations of neoliberalism; and the hegemony of economic growth. Together, these works raise an array of important questions: What economic, political and social factors underpinned the evolution of national and global economic governance in the twentieth century? How have conflicts and crises generated competing ideas and agendas for governing the global economy? And to what extent can these works inform our perspective on present-day challenges of climate change, global poverty, public health, deindustrialisation and global economic stability?

The focus of this conference will be on examining the ways in which the world economy has been contested, debated, governed and restructured during moments of crisis and change, as well as how challenging conditions determined relations between states, businesses, individuals and civil society. Our conference will aim to bridge past and present by offering fresh insights into the forces that have shaped our current global economy, and by considering possible future trajectories of the international economy.

Our conference welcomes a broad range of topics that are historical in perspective, including but not limited to those concerned with: global trade and monetary order; the economics of empire and decolonisation; international economic organisations and international economic relations; the governing of global food and commodities; global labour practices and markets; global banking and finance; multinational business enterprises; and international tax and regulation. Following the conference, we may solicit articles for the publication of a special issue.

This conference is sponsored by the History & Political Economy Project, the Economic History Society, the Conference for European Studies at Temple University, the Rothermere American Institute, the Oxford Martin School Changing Global Orders project, Past & Present, St John’s College and Wadham College.

Programme

Registration

Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

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