Working title of PhD project: "Governing Expectations: The Politics of Macroeconomic Management during the ‘Great Moderation’"

Biography

I studied political science, economics, and international law at the University of Munich and at Sciences Po Paris. I hold Master level degrees from Munich University in political science as well as in economics (Magister Artium and Diplom, respectively). As a student, I worked as a research assistant at the Chair of International Politics and interned at the German national parliament in Berlin as well as at the German embassy in Teheran. Before commencing my PhD at Warwick, I worked as a research and teaching fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Munich.

Research interests and PhD project

My interest in (international) political economy evolved quite naturally from doing coursework in both economics and political science. My thesis in political science constituted a first attempt at combining both perspectives. Puzzled by the prominence of the concept of 'securitization' in the International Relations literature on migration I tried to show that there has recently been a marked discursive shift towards 'economization'. My economics thesis basically summarizes and evaluates the methodoligical critique of the microfoundation of modern macroeconomics in the light of the recent financial and economic crisis.

The general topic of this PhD project is the governance of expectations in the context of monetary policy and its effects on the economy. The underlying research question is: In what ways does the central bank change the economy by actively managing private sector expectations about the future? The central hypothesis is that by making market actors adopt its own macroeconomic models and forecasts, the central bank to a certain extent ‘performs’ these models and forecasts. This imposition of economics on the economy – which actually amounts to a form of central planning – has far-reaching political implications. The ultimate goals of this research are therefore (i) to make these implications visible in the first place, (ii) to analyse the power relations that underpinned the inflation targeting regime of the ‘Great Moderation’, and thus (iii) to contribute to a better understanding of how the economic actors, mechanisms, and laws that make up ‘the economy’ are socially constructed.

Besides my PhD, I am also involved in an ongoing research project on the politics of banking crisis management in Europe. Focussing on the recent financial crisis, Dieter Kerwer and I analyse the role played by informal institutions in enabling and facilitating inter- and transnational co-ordination.

Conference Presentations

• Paradigms, contingency planning, and crisis management: The role of the ECB in the crisis of 2007‐2012, paper presented at the ECPR joint sessions workshop 'Economic Ideas and the PoliCcal ConstrucCon of Financial Crisis and Reform' in Antwerp, April 10­‐15, 2012.
  
• Augmenting the nations human capital: Economization and the new politics of immigration, presentation given at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) in Madrid, June 23-25.
• How the European Union deals with its banking crisis, paper presented at the joint conference of the sections ‘Political Economy’ and ‘International Political Economy’ of the German Association for Political Science (DVPW) in Marburg, May 27-28, 2011 (co-author: Dieter Kerwer).
• The economy is what macroeconomists make of it – how macroeconomics performs the economy, presentation given at the 5th ESRN Interim Conference in Bielefeld, December 3-5, 2010.
• The construction of governability and the performativity of macroeconomics, paper presented at the EAEPE Annual Conference in Bordeaux, October 28-30, 2010.
• Informal Institutional Change: Coping with the global banking crisis in Europe, paper presented at the 7th Pan-European Conference on International Relations in Stockholm, September 9-11, 2010 (co-author: Dieter Kerwer).
• On the politics of economics: New Keynesian governability and the practice of inflation targeting, paper presented at the 7th Pan-European Conference on International Relations in Stockholm, September 9-11, 2010.
• Neoliberal moves: The (de-)politicization of economic freedom, presentation at the7th Pan-European Conference on International Relations in Stockholm, September 9-11, 2010.
• Theory, (un-)certainty, (in-)stability: Makroökonomisches Denken und Handeln zwischen De- und Repolitisierung, paper presented at the Young Researchers Conference of the Section ‘International Politics’ of the German Association of Political Science (DVPW) in Arnoldshain, May 28-30, 2010.

Teaching experience

• Autumn term 2011: History of Economic Thought (Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen)
• Summer semester 2011: Invisible hand or 'long arm'? The relationship between the market and the state in economic theory and practice (Department of Political Science, University of Munich)
• Summer semester 2011: Introduction to Comparative Political Economy (Department of Political Science, University of Munich)
• Summer semester 2011: Varieties of Constructivist International Political Economy (Department of Political Science, University of Munich)
• Summer semester 2010: Invisible hand or 'long arm'? The relationship between the market and the state in economic theory and practice (Department of Political Science, University of Munich)
• Summer semester 2010: Varieties of Constructivist International Political Economy (Department of Political Science, University of Munich)

Other academic activities

I am actively involved in the COST Action 'Systemic Risks, Financial Crises and Credit'. I co-organized the first PhD School of the network, which was held in Paris in May 2011.

Languages

German, English (fluent), French (fluent), Spanish (intermediate).

Benjamin Braun

b dot braun at warwick dot ac dot uk

Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS)
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL
United Kingdom