Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	What is Wrong with Economics?	Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00 - Thu, 13.06.2019, 17:30	Seminars and Colloquia	Robert Skidelsky	What is Wrong with Economics? A Plea for a more Unified Social Science Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00 - Thu, 13.06.2019, 17:30 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Seminars and Colloquia For too long economists have ignored the implications of ethics, philosophy, history and sociology within their discipline, assuming without question that humans are rational beings whose wants are given. The resulting orthodoxy is incapable of offering any critique of the human hunger for accumulating wealth without limit, and has drastically overreached its scope. Robert Skidelsky’s work is a clarion call for more pluralism within economics and an appeal for a discipline that is sensitive to both the subtleties of human behaviour and the contingency of its own methods. Read more
What is Wrong with Economics? A Plea for a more Unified Social Science Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00 - Thu, 13.06.2019, 17:30 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Seminars and Colloquia For too long economists have ignored the implications of ethics, philosophy, history and sociology within their discipline, assuming without question that humans are rational beings whose wants are given. The resulting orthodoxy is incapable of offering any critique of the human hunger for accumulating wealth without limit, and has drastically overreached its scope. Robert Skidelsky’s work is a clarion call for more pluralism within economics and an appeal for a discipline that is sensitive to both the subtleties of human behaviour and the contingency of its own methods. Read more
	Discussion: What is Wrong with Economics?	Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Robert Skidelsky	Discussion: What is Wrong with Economics? A Plea for a more Unified Social Science Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Seminars and Colloquia For too long economists have ignored the implications of ethics, philosophy, history and sociology within their discipline, assuming without question that humans are rational beings whose wants are given. The resulting orthodoxy is incapable of offering any critique of the human hunger for accumulating wealth without limit, and has drastically overreached its scope. Robert Skidelsky’s work is a clarion call for more pluralism within economics and an appeal for a discipline that is sensitive to both the subtleties of human behaviour and the contingency of its own methods. Read more
Discussion: What is Wrong with Economics? A Plea for a more Unified Social Science Thu, 13.06.2019, 16:00 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Seminars and Colloquia For too long economists have ignored the implications of ethics, philosophy, history and sociology within their discipline, assuming without question that humans are rational beings whose wants are given. The resulting orthodoxy is incapable of offering any critique of the human hunger for accumulating wealth without limit, and has drastically overreached its scope. Robert Skidelsky’s work is a clarion call for more pluralism within economics and an appeal for a discipline that is sensitive to both the subtleties of human behaviour and the contingency of its own methods. Read more
	Technology and Utopia	Wed, 12.06.2019, 14:00	Lecture	Robert Skidelsky	Technology and Utopia Wed, 12.06.2019, 14:00 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Lecture In contemporary discussions about the future of artificial intelligence we often lose our heads. While economists offer bleak predictions of mass job losses and a deepening of already widespread precarity, Silicon Valley utopians insist that new technologies are bringing us ever closer together and will one day deliver us from work, disease and poverty. But when human life is reduced to a set of rational processes waiting to be optimised we risk losing sight of the irreducible quality of human experience. With his characteristic attention to the subtleties of the human condition, Robert Skidelsky offers a challenging account of what it means to pursue the good life in the age of the machines. Read more
Technology and Utopia Wed, 12.06.2019, 14:00 Speakers: Robert Skidelsky Series: Lecture In contemporary discussions about the future of artificial intelligence we often lose our heads. While economists offer bleak predictions of mass job losses and a deepening of already widespread precarity, Silicon Valley utopians insist that new technologies are bringing us ever closer together and will one day deliver us from work, disease and poverty. But when human life is reduced to a set of rational processes waiting to be optimised we risk losing sight of the irreducible quality of human experience. With his characteristic attention to the subtleties of the human condition, Robert Skidelsky offers a challenging account of what it means to pursue the good life in the age of the machines. Read more
	Europe’s Futures Final Symposium	Wed, 12.06.2019, 10:00	Panels and Discussions	Ivan Vejvoda Luke Cooper Piotr Buras Rosa Balfour Stefan Lehne Tim Judah Zsuzsanna Szelényi	Europe’s Futures Final Symposium Wed, 12.06.2019, 10:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Luke Cooper Piotr Buras Rosa Balfour Stefan Lehne Tim Judah Zsuzsanna Szelényi Series: Panels and Discussions We need platforms to renew and reinvent Europe. In cooperation with leading European organisations and think-tanks, IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the crucially important topics: asylum and migration, rule of law and democracy, European enlargement and social inclusion. Europe’s Futures has clear objectives: a European Union that protects its citizens; where Member States defend the fundamental values of a democratic order and rule of law; and where countries such as Austria continue to forward the Union’s democratisation and enlargement agenda. Read more
Europe’s Futures Final Symposium Wed, 12.06.2019, 10:00 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Luke Cooper Piotr Buras Rosa Balfour Stefan Lehne Tim Judah Zsuzsanna Szelényi Series: Panels and Discussions We need platforms to renew and reinvent Europe. In cooperation with leading European organisations and think-tanks, IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the crucially important topics: asylum and migration, rule of law and democracy, European enlargement and social inclusion. Europe’s Futures has clear objectives: a European Union that protects its citizens; where Member States defend the fundamental values of a democratic order and rule of law; and where countries such as Austria continue to forward the Union’s democratisation and enlargement agenda. Read more
	What the EU can learn from the Habsburg Empire	Thu, 06.06.2019, 18:30	Panels and Discussions	Ivan KrastevA. Wess Mitchell	What the EU can learn from the Habsburg Empire Thu, 06.06.2019, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan KrastevA. Wess Mitchell Series: Panels and Discussions In the fourth event of the Geopolitical Talks Series, IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev talked with A. Wess Mitchell, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2017-2019), about current geopolitical challenges and lessons from the past. Read more
What the EU can learn from the Habsburg Empire Thu, 06.06.2019, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan KrastevA. Wess Mitchell Series: Panels and Discussions In the fourth event of the Geopolitical Talks Series, IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev talked with A. Wess Mitchell, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2017-2019), about current geopolitical challenges and lessons from the past. Read more
	The International State System after Neoliberalism	Wed, 05.06.2019, 18:00	Lecture	Wolfgang Streeck	The International State System after Neoliberalism Europe between National Democracy and Supranational Centralization Wed, 05.06.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Wolfgang Streeck Series: Lecture Wolfgang Streeck began by recalling a short essay by Karl Polanyi, written in 1945, in which he discusses the prospects of a new, peaceful global order, based on the lessons of the war and the interwar period. In it Polanyi advocates an international regime beyond both Communist and neoliberal universalism that allows for national political-economic self-determination. Of particular importance here is Polanyi’s concept of “regional planning”, which stands for jointly regulated sectoral economic cooperation between neighboring sovereign countries that retain their monetary sovereignty. Comparing Polanyi’s vision to the world of today he found differences and similarities that both appear highly instructive. Among other things, it seems that the prospects for a democratically decentralized European state system, as opposed to the technocratic centralization promoted by the European Union, are intertwined with the emerging global relationship between China, now occupying in Polanyi’s scenario the position of the Soviet Union, and a, perhaps, increasingly isolationist United States. In this context, Wolfgang Streeck pointed to the propagation of a new collective defense narrative – the “European army” project – as a substitute for the social welfare and prosperity narrative in support of “European integration” that has lost its credibility with the collapse of neoliberalism as a viable political formula. Read more
The International State System after Neoliberalism Europe between National Democracy and Supranational Centralization Wed, 05.06.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Wolfgang Streeck Series: Lecture Wolfgang Streeck began by recalling a short essay by Karl Polanyi, written in 1945, in which he discusses the prospects of a new, peaceful global order, based on the lessons of the war and the interwar period. In it Polanyi advocates an international regime beyond both Communist and neoliberal universalism that allows for national political-economic self-determination. Of particular importance here is Polanyi’s concept of “regional planning”, which stands for jointly regulated sectoral economic cooperation between neighboring sovereign countries that retain their monetary sovereignty. Comparing Polanyi’s vision to the world of today he found differences and similarities that both appear highly instructive. Among other things, it seems that the prospects for a democratically decentralized European state system, as opposed to the technocratic centralization promoted by the European Union, are intertwined with the emerging global relationship between China, now occupying in Polanyi’s scenario the position of the Soviet Union, and a, perhaps, increasingly isolationist United States. In this context, Wolfgang Streeck pointed to the propagation of a new collective defense narrative – the “European army” project – as a substitute for the social welfare and prosperity narrative in support of “European integration” that has lost its credibility with the collapse of neoliberalism as a viable political formula. Read more
	The Future of Work	Mon, 03.06.2019, 18:00	Panels and Discussions	Ludger Hagedorn Robert SkidelskyMichal Pechoucek	The Future of Work Is Artifical Intelligence a New Road to Serfdom? Mon, 03.06.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Robert SkidelskyMichal Pechoucek Series: Panels and Discussions In contemporary discussions about the future of artificial intelligence we often lose our heads. While economists offer bleak predictions of mass job losses and a deepening of already widespread precarity, Silicon Valley utopians insist that new technologies are bringing us ever closer together and will one day deliver us from work, disease and poverty. But when human life is reduced to a set of rational processes waiting to be optimized, we risk losing sight of the irreducible quality of human experience. With his characteristic attention to the subtleties of the human condition, Robert Skidelsky offers a challenging account of what it means to pursue the good life in the age of the machines. Read more
The Future of Work Is Artifical Intelligence a New Road to Serfdom? Mon, 03.06.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Robert SkidelskyMichal Pechoucek Series: Panels and Discussions In contemporary discussions about the future of artificial intelligence we often lose our heads. While economists offer bleak predictions of mass job losses and a deepening of already widespread precarity, Silicon Valley utopians insist that new technologies are bringing us ever closer together and will one day deliver us from work, disease and poverty. But when human life is reduced to a set of rational processes waiting to be optimized, we risk losing sight of the irreducible quality of human experience. With his characteristic attention to the subtleties of the human condition, Robert Skidelsky offers a challenging account of what it means to pursue the good life in the age of the machines. Read more
	Dilemmas of Popular Sovereignty: Tocqueville’s Perspective	Mon, 03.06.2019, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Aishwary Kumar Ewa Atanassow	Dilemmas of Popular Sovereignty: Tocqueville’s Perspective Mon, 03.06.2019, 16:00 Speakers: Aishwary Kumar Ewa Atanassow Series: Seminars and Colloquia Might a 19th century thinker help us grapple with political dilemmas of the 21st? This talk brought Tocqueville to bear on liberal democracy’s present discontents by exploring his understanding of popular sovereignty and its ramifications for democratic politics. While Tocqueville embraced popular sovereignty as an abstract principle and American practice, he also diagnosed its inherent dangers. Tocqueville’s clairvoyant analysis of the dilemmas faced by the American Union of his day offers a privileged site for considering enduring challenges to liberal democracy. Read more
Dilemmas of Popular Sovereignty: Tocqueville’s Perspective Mon, 03.06.2019, 16:00 Speakers: Aishwary Kumar Ewa Atanassow Series: Seminars and Colloquia Might a 19th century thinker help us grapple with political dilemmas of the 21st? This talk brought Tocqueville to bear on liberal democracy’s present discontents by exploring his understanding of popular sovereignty and its ramifications for democratic politics. While Tocqueville embraced popular sovereignty as an abstract principle and American practice, he also diagnosed its inherent dangers. Tocqueville’s clairvoyant analysis of the dilemmas faced by the American Union of his day offers a privileged site for considering enduring challenges to liberal democracy. Read more
	Popular Sovereignty, Majority Rule, and Electoral Politics	Thu, 30.05.2019, 13:30 - Sat, 01.06.2019, 13:00	Conferences and Workshops	Aishwary Kumar Ayşe Çağlar Charles Taylor Ewa Atanassow Ludger Hagedorn Shalini RanderiaBenjamin Lee, Michael Ignatieff, Craig Calhoun, Nilüfer Göle, Luciana Chamorro, Arudra Burra, Mukulika Banerjee, Deval Desai	Popular Sovereignty, Majority Rule, and Electoral Politics Thu, 30.05.2019, 13:30 - Sat, 01.06.2019, 13:00 Speakers: Aishwary Kumar Ayşe Çağlar Charles Taylor Ewa Atanassow Ludger Hagedorn Shalini RanderiaBenjamin Lee, Michael Ignatieff, Craig Calhoun, Nilüfer Göle, Luciana Chamorro, Arudra Burra, Mukulika Banerjee, Deval Desai Series: Conferences and Workshops The three concepts-popular sovereignty, majority rule and electoral politics-as embodied in institutional arrangements and practices, are seen as constitutive of the modern democratic project as it has evolved over the last three hundred years or more. However, in recent decades those concepts and their institutional expressions are beginning to threaten and undermine the spirit and norms of democracy everywhere, including in economically advanced liberal societies in the West. This conference interrogated and explored this challenge “internal” to the democratic project itself. Read more
Popular Sovereignty, Majority Rule, and Electoral Politics Thu, 30.05.2019, 13:30 - Sat, 01.06.2019, 13:00 Speakers: Aishwary Kumar Ayşe Çağlar Charles Taylor Ewa Atanassow Ludger Hagedorn Shalini RanderiaBenjamin Lee, Michael Ignatieff, Craig Calhoun, Nilüfer Göle, Luciana Chamorro, Arudra Burra, Mukulika Banerjee, Deval Desai Series: Conferences and Workshops The three concepts-popular sovereignty, majority rule and electoral politics-as embodied in institutional arrangements and practices, are seen as constitutive of the modern democratic project as it has evolved over the last three hundred years or more. However, in recent decades those concepts and their institutional expressions are beginning to threaten and undermine the spirit and norms of democracy everywhere, including in economically advanced liberal societies in the West. This conference interrogated and explored this challenge “internal” to the democratic project itself. Read more
	Migrants and City Making in Disempowered Cities	Tue, 28.05.2019, 18:00	Lecture	Ayşe Çağlar	Migrants and City Making in Disempowered Cities Tue, 28.05.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Series: Lecture What do cities which have lost their economic, political, and cultural power and population reveal about the location of migrants in city-making and urban politics? What do they disclose about the fault lines of neoliberal urban redevelopment? Empirical findings from left-behind cities might provide new insights to think about migrants, urban politics, and current populist narratives. However, this requires a move beyond the historically and culturally constructed categories and divides of migration scholarship and public debates. Once we shift our focus to the entanglements between urban regeneration and their dispossessive forces that create common conditions of displacement and precarity for urban residents, we might see new ways of exploring solidarities for social and historical justice struggles in these cities. Read more
Migrants and City Making in Disempowered Cities Tue, 28.05.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Series: Lecture What do cities which have lost their economic, political, and cultural power and population reveal about the location of migrants in city-making and urban politics? What do they disclose about the fault lines of neoliberal urban redevelopment? Empirical findings from left-behind cities might provide new insights to think about migrants, urban politics, and current populist narratives. However, this requires a move beyond the historically and culturally constructed categories and divides of migration scholarship and public debates. Once we shift our focus to the entanglements between urban regeneration and their dispossessive forces that create common conditions of displacement and precarity for urban residents, we might see new ways of exploring solidarities for social and historical justice struggles in these cities. Read more