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Begin New Search Topic War Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Commentary and Analysis Publication Year within 5 Years Publication Year within 25 Years

1. War, Plague and Inflation: Is this time different?: An Interview with Dr. Natacha Postel-Vinay

Author:
Natacha Postel-Vinay and Tehreem Husain
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
World economies are facing a troika of challenges in the form of war (in Ukraine), disease (COVID19) and return of inflation, all of which have led to dampened growth globally. This invites us to ask how new these challenges, individually and as a combination, are, and what lessons we can draw from history? To answer these questions, we take a long-run view from more than 100 years of history to discuss the implications of war, disease, and inflation on our economies. This interview features Dr. Natacha Postel-Vinay, an economic and financial historian and Assistant Professor at the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Postel-Vinay is an expert on the economic history of the Great Depression. Her research focuses on public finance, private finance, and welfare. More specifically, her research looks at the connections between bank risk-taking, banking crises, banking crisis resolution, public debt, and moral hazard, all from a historical perspective. I seek her opinion on the current economic environment and discuss how history can inform the present. The talk is structured in two parts. The first part focuses on understanding the similarities and differences between the experiences of inflation, war, and pandemic today compared to the interwar period. This section covers rising indebtedness and the impact of war, pandemic, and inflation on bank lending and credit supply. The second part focuses on highlighting some solutions to the present crisis and highlighting the risks to recovery.
Topic:
War, History, Inflation, Interview, and Disease
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War: An Interview with Nicholas Mulder

Author:
Nicholas Mulder and Mahia Bashir
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
The 2008 global financial crisis and the dislocations it caused sparked a renewed interest in economic and international histories of capitalism, globalization, and internationalism and produced a new corpus of writings that we broadly know as new economic and new international histories. Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War is the latest addition to this corpus. It details the history of sanctions, their wartime origins in the economic blockade of the First World War, and their evolution from a deterrent to an actively used tool of modern state warfare. In doing so, it raises and answers important theoretical questions about the limits and contradictions of the interwar liberal international order, state sovereignty, and the legitimacy of a totalising instrument that profoundly and rather devastatingly impacts civilian societies. Through the story of sanctions, the book also offers a fresh perspective on the tragic escalatory spiral of the 1930s—the rise of fascist states but also the Second World War. Straddling regions from Albania, Greece, and Switzerland to Manchuria and Latin America, The Economic Weapon has all the trappings of a gripping international economic history: it blends detail and analysis harmoniously. I had the delightful pleasure of speaking with the author, Nicholas Mulder on a balmy spring day about the book. We talked, inter alia, about Professor Mulder’s scholarly journey, the origins and evolution of sanctions, the ethical dilemmas they posed, and the role of historical memory in the history of sanctions. Professor Mulder was also very generous in giving us a glimpse into his exciting new project on confiscation.
Topic:
War, History, Sanctions, and Interview
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. THE STABILITY-INSTABILITY PANDEMIC

Author:
Evan Perkoski
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Will the COVID-19 pandemic increase or decrease conflict around the globe? Across myriad blog posts and op-eds, a consensus appears to be emerging: in the short term, the global community may experience a pax epidemia, as Barry Posen refers to it, where “the odds of a war between major powers will go down, not up.” But the opposite may be true for intrastate conflict—e.g. civil wars and insurgencies—where conditions seem ripe for more turbulent subnational politics.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, War, Conflict, COVID-19, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Global Focus