Event Date: October 15, 2018 - 1:30pm to 3:00pm
Location: FSS4004, 120 Université Privé
Prof. Pascale Massot argues that the political science literature has not devoted enough energy to the task of defining what markets are. Further, when definitional efforts are made, there is a tendency to adopt an implicit definition of the “market as arena”, which, she argues, is insufficient. The fact that markets are an underdefined concept deprives us of useful tools for the elucidation of important research questions about markets in the global economy. It also leads to a distortion of the dialogue between the “in-groups” and “out-groups” about notions of fairness, both at the domestic and international levels. Going back to Polanyi, and taking inspiration from economic sociology, the International Political Economy of resources literature and the Varieties of Capitalism literature along the way, Prof. Massot’s presentation develops a richer, institutionally grounded set of tools to define, evaluate and compare markets, and inspire others to contribute to the endeavour.
Prof. Massot is an assistant professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.
From December 2015 to July 2017 she was on public service leave from the university, serving as Policy Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada and Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of International Trade of Canada.
Her research interests include the global governance of extractive commodity markets, the political economy of the Asia Pacific region and of China in particular, Chinese domestic commodity markets, including the iron ore, potash and uranium markets, the relationship between global rebalancing and systemic change in the international economy, Chinese state investments abroad and state investment funds more generally, Canada-China relations, the role of trust in global resource markets, and non-traditional security issues, especially economic, and resource security issues.
She has conducted field research in China, including as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and a visiting PhD Candidate at Peking University’s Center for International Political Economy. Pascale Massot was the 2014-2015 Cadieux-Léger Fellow at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada.