Twentieth-Century International Economic Thinking, and the Complex History of Globalization

ongoing

Today globalization, the integration of the world's economies, is blamed for crises of corporate excess, gaping economic inequality and revived populist nationalisms; to understand its complex history is more pressing than ever. ECOINT advances an innovative approach to the study of the struggles over economic ideas that have fashioned the paths to globalization. It shifts our focus from international economic thought as an unanchored field of ideas, to ‘international economic thinking’, generated in and through institutional sites distinctive to the 20th century: intergovernmental organisations and associated international non-governmental organisations. ECOINT adds to the history of globalization important but understudied economic thinkers, namely mid-level and ‘non-intellectual’ intellectuals, many of them women, working with and in these organizations, from 1919 until 2001. Hence, ECOINT provides a nuanced history of twentieth century international economic thinking and imaginaries, while making a unique contribution to understanding of the international 20th century. Above and beyond, ECOINT will ask: What difference did women economic thinkers make in the course of globalization? And what was the role of business, operating through INGOs? Using largely neglected private and public archives, ECOINT will produce a capstone global history of international economic thinking, and social history of women economic thinkers in international institutions. It will capture the extent and breadth of international economic thinking at major IGOs— particularly the UN Regional Economic Commissions in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, and Africa—and the INGOs the International Federation of Business and Professional Women and International Chamber of Commerce. Within five years, ECOINT will have mapped the range of international economic thinking, the impact of women and business in the complex history of globalization.