ECOINT - Twentieth-century international economic thinking, and the complex history of globalisation

Globalisation, 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. This project, led by Prof. Sluga, studies the struggles over economic ideas that have fashioned the paths to globalization. Its focus is on the generation of those ideas in and through institutional sites distinctive to the 20th century, namely intergovernmental organisations and associated international non-governmental organisations. By looking into the work of those institutions we find important but understudied economic thinkers, namely mid-level and ‘non-intellectual’ intellectuals – many of them women. This is a project that goes in search of a nuanced history of twentieth century international economic thinking and imaginaries, while making a unique contribution to understanding of the international 20th century. On the basis of this same research, it will ask: what difference did women economic thinkers, and business NGOs working in and through these international institutions, make in the course of globalization?

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.