General call for submissions

“Is planning possible in the face of crises?”

AFEP is a general scientific association which objective is to promote pluralism in economics. The annual AFEP conference is an important moment for the association and for the community of French economists. It allows the pluralism of theories, methods and objects to come alive. Beyond that, the conference encourages dialogue and interdisciplinarity within the humanities and social sciences. This is why proposals for papers other than economics (sociology, management, anthropology, geography, regional planning, political science, history, philosophy, law, etc.) are welcome and encouraged.

In the spirit of openness that characterises the pluralist approach promoted by AFEP, the conference remains open to all themes and approaches. Therefore, proposals that do not explicitly address the theme of the conference are welcome and will be considered by the scientific committee. Proposals for thematic workshops (open or closed) will also be highly appreciated.

Institutional economics has shown that past crises have redrawn the boundaries between the market and public intervention.

1. Towards a conscious way out of crises?

Prevention and/or immediate corrective strategies have emerged as the preferred solutions for public authorities in crisis management. However, the scale, nature and proliferation of crises today require these strategies to be re-examined and re-defined.

At the same time, the signs of a possible deliberate, constructed regulation of the economy emerge as a new historical fact. The imperative of ecological change is growing stronger and its temporality is structuring the world. Everywhere, societies are confronted with the crossing of planetary boundaries and ecological inequalities. Faced with the challenge of integrating the constraints of ecological change into the functioning of our economies and societies, what strategies should be implemented? Can the development of so-called 'green' activities be achieved without the stranding of so-called 'brown' capital, which implies a sudden and (relatively) unforeseen deterioration in its profitability? What value should be placed on avoided emissions in order to steer public and private investment towards a more ambitious decarbonisation path? And what role can we hope to give to the shadow value of carbon, which is certainly a benchmark that actors take into account in their investment plans, but which is struggling to materialise in the form of a credible price signal?

Whatever the future production processes, their design and objectives will require attention to the development of a conscious and collective, and therefore fundamentally political, regulation of the economy, its structures and the institutional arrangements on which it is based, taking into account the radical uncertainty that accompanies the current systemic crisis.

2.     The return of planning?

There are not so many tools available for building the future together. Planning is one of them. It has resurfaced from a past that associated it with the impasses of Soviet planning. But planning was omnipresent from the 1930s until at least the end of the 1970s, in the East, West and South alike. Its great plasticity must be stressed. Various types of planning should be considered. The history of economic thought and history offer important perspectives here.

The Soviet experience raises a number of questions, in particular the question of depriving the actors of an economy of voluntary and horizontal coordination and cooperation. These questions open up the possibility of rethinking this instrument, which is reappearing in the present, notably through ecological planning. The current return of planning to political and economic agendas can be read on several levels, which this call for papers aims to explore.

A new form of state interventionism?

Today, large-scale experiments in ecological planning are multiplying. This is the case in France (Secrétariat Général à la Planification Écologique), Europe (Green Deal), the United States (Green New Deal reduced to the IRA) and China (Ecological Civilisation). The methods of public intervention, in particular industrial policy, the resources allocated to public financial institutions and development banks, and the launch of green stimulus plans in Western countries seem to be the first steps towards a change in the direction of state intervention.

Given their ambition to "decarbonise society" and the financial resources allocated to them, these policies suggest the possibility of a return to direct, planned state intervention, breaking with the dominant neoliberal state model of the last forty years. However, current conditions are different from those that prevailed during the post-war national planning experiments, opening the door to a renewed form of state interventionism. It is therefore important to understand and analyse the planning model and practices that characterise this 'new' state interventionism.

Political democracy, economic democracy

Could the reintroduction of planning be an opportunity to go further? In the history of planning and the assessment of its success or failure, coordination by the market and democracy are regularly associated. This link deserves to be examined: how do virtuous planning and democratic institutions fit together? Is coordination by the market a necessary tool for democracy? Yet political democracy and economic democracy are not the same thing. How can planning help to bring them into line? Can planning be a collective choice based on economic democracy and help to strengthen it?

Planning scales

Public intervention goes hand in hand with the possibility of conscious and collective regulation of crises. But it is not the only support. Decentralised, more or less convergent transition initiatives have been and are being observed. They bring together public and civic action, companies (both in their employer and employee components) and non-market organisations at different scales, and are currently giving rise to local, highly horizontal forms of planning alongside state planning. In these initiatives, economic democracy is mobilised as a possibility for action, combining both conflicting objects and possible compromises, for the moment of uncertain scope, to think and produce the future. This local, 'sub-state' planning contributes to the renewal of public action. It also raises the question of how to coordinate local planning on a larger scale.

3.     Rethinking planning to emerge from crises

Can planning be seen as supporting the democratic construction of the future? What are the implications for critical theorisations of transition, understood as a conscious way out of crises? How are innovative social practices constructed and disseminated along these lines? How can local compromises be legitimised and institutionalised in an alternative regime? Which spaces, organisations and scales might be involved in these processes? For example, what does Africa's proposal for a global price on carbon say to the world? How are decisions made? With what knowledge (how to count?) and resources (what administrative and technical apparatus?)? How can/could planning be imposed on economic and financial actors in the current context, marked by forty years of neoliberal policies in favour of capital? How can the current state establish a (favourable) balance of power with these players, when the attempt to socialise risk leaves aside the question of the private appropriation of profit? These are just some of the questions, partly determined by new issues related to the nature of the crises, that the call for papers invites participants to document

Three types of submission are possible:

- Scientific paper proposal: each author submits a proposal (with an extended abstract, two pages with bibliographic references) on the online platform;

- Proposal for a closed thematic workshop: each workshop coordinator proposes a theme and a list of speakers, collects the communication proposals and animates the workshop if necessary;

- Open thematic workshop proposal: each workshop coordinator proposes a theme which, if accepted, may give lead to a specific call for papers sent by the coordinator. The communications grouped in the thematic workshop will be chosen from among the proposals for scientific communication responding to the general call and/or this specific call.

"Each workshop coordinator is asked to pay attention to gender parity and the diversity of the people chosen to participate”

Deadline for submitting proposals for papers or thematic workshops via the https://afep2024.sciencesconf.org platform (approx. 2 pages): January 2024, 31.

Notification of acceptance of thematic workshops: as they are submitted

Notification of acceptance of communications: March 2024, 31

Notification of acceptance of papers submitted for thematic workshops: April 2024, 10

July 2 is reserved for PhD student presentations and will be the subject of a specific call. For more information: doctorants@assoeconomiepolitique.org.

The conference will combine plenary sessions with parallel themed workshops. To encourage exchanges with non-French-speaking colleagues, communications in English are welcome.

Download the Call for Papers