SPAIS Lunchtime Talks are a chance to hear SPAIS lecturers and researchers offer their take on some of the big issues of the day. Talks will draw on their research and expertise, inviting us to think critically about events and ideas shaping popular discourse on politics and international relations today. Talks will last approximately 25 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. 

In this talk, Dr Sam Appleton reflects on the uses made of Karl Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ thesis in the field of International Political Economy. A key element of pathbreaking and field-defining works from Eric Helleiner and J.G. Ruggie, Polanyi’s analysis of the dialectical process of marketisation and social resistance to it has been turned on its head in Streeck’s penetrating diagnosis of the ills of contemporary capitalism. In this talk, Dr. Appleton draws on his doctoral thesis and current research on the relationship between private finance and global governance to explore some of the shortcomings of the ‘Polanyian’ framework and consider what this might mean for the conclusion that capitalism is ‘ending’ in a drawn-out process of societal decay.