Global Political Economy Seminar - Securitising political economy

POLIS is delighted to bring you this third seminar of its Global Political Economy series! This event is the third of five seminars focussing on China and the GPE.

Wednesday 6^th March | Online | 12:00 (GMT)

Speaker: Professor Shaun Breslin, FAcSS (University of Warwick)

‘Securitising political economy: Shifting Perceptions of China in Europe’

Abstract

In the mid-2010s, a number of European governments were competing with each other to attract Chinese investment and to become China’s best friend in Europe. By the end of the decade, many of those same governments were now viewing Chinese investment as a problem, arguing that Chinese economic statecraft provided at least a challenge to Europe and Europeans, and maybe even a threat. In seeking an explanation for this shift in dominant discourses, this paper focuses on how a particular view of what China is and stands for influences a particular understanding of the nature of China’s political economy. This results in a very broad understanding or definition of what is foreign policy and what is economic statecraft in the Chinese case, and what is used as supposed evidence of this state intent (compared to what is done by economic actors from other countries).

Shaun Breslin is Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He is expert on Chinese politics and economy, globalization, regionalism, governance and international political economy. He is the author of China Risen: Studying Chinese Global Power (Bristol University Press, 2021), China and the Global Political Economy (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007), Mao (Longman, 2000, first edition 1998), and China in the 1980s: Centre-Province Relations in a Reforming Socialist State (Macmillan and St Martins, 1996). Breslin is also the co-author of four other academic books and numerous publications in his field. Breslin is co-editor of The Pacific Review, senior research fellow at the Wong MNC Center, Scientific Advisor FORAC (Foreign acquisitions and political retaliation as threats to supply security in an era of strategic decoupling), Associate Senior Research Fellow at The Italian Institute for International Political Studies, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

This seminar will take place online. The Zoom link is available here: https://universityofleeds.zoom.us/j/7478535629. Please contact Dr Geoff Goodwin (G.B.Goodwin@leeds.ac.uk) with any queries.