​Matthew Eagleton-Pierce

All my research has been preoccupied with understanding the forms of power in capitalism, with a particular interest around the nexus between material and symbolic power. Empirical work which investigates these larger tendencies is focused on three areas of global political economy: (1) trade (WTO; NGOs and trade policy); (2) ideologies and capitalism (neoliberalism, the politics of managerialism); and (3) finance (City of London institutional politics). My disciplinary location is within international political economy and international political sociology.

Political Economy of Global Trade
 

I have long standing interests in the political economy of international trade. In my Oxford University Press book, Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization (2013), I explore how different forms of power operate within a major international organisation. Through the theoretical inspiration of Pierre Bourdieu, the study plots how developing countries have struggled over recent agricultural trade rules. In recent research, I address the broader issue of experts and expertise in making of global trade policy. This project explores the socio-political construction of expertise in order to answer two key questions: (1) how does one become an expert in this field of transnational capitalism? (2) what are the distributional consequences of the privileging of certain expertise over others? The work is particularly focused on the rise of research-intensive civil society groups, such as Oxfam, and how they have contested mainstream policy.

Example Publications

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Book: Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Article: 'Professionalizing Protest: Scientific Capital and Advocacy in Trade Politics', International Political Sociology, 12 (2018), 3, 233-255.

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Book chapter: 'All the Trader’s Men: Professionals in International Trade Policymaking', in Seabrooke, L. and Henriksen, L. F. (eds), Professional Networks in Transnational Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Ideologies and Capitalism
 

I have a particular interest in the relationship between ideologies and capitalism. In my book, Neoliberalism: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2016), I provide a critical guide to 44 key terms which have become dominant, such as choice, competition, and entrepreneurship. My argument is that there is not a single neoliberal ideology, but rather that the creation, defending, and critiquing of contemporary capitalism involves many ideologies, resulting in multiple historical sources and hybridized forms.  Elsewhere, in recent work, I have collaborated with a group of colleagues to explore the political economy of managerialism. Published in a special issue of Review of International Political Economy (co-edited with Sam Knafo), our argument is that IPE has neglected the increasing power of managerial ideas and practices in many domains of the global economy. My research has explored how to define managerial ideology and, in an empirical analysis, assess its rise and contestable impact on international NGOs.

Example Publications

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Book: Neoliberalism: The Key Concepts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

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Book chapter: ‘Historicising the Neoliberal Spirit of Capitalism’, in Springer, S. et al. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Neoliberalism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

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Article: 'Introduction: The Political Economy of Managerialism' (with Samuel Knafo), Review of International Political Economy, Published online May 21, 2020.

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Article: ‘The Rise of Managerialism in International NGOs’, Review of International Political Economy, Published online: 5 Sep 2019.

Political Economy of Finance
 

My current research agenda is focused on the politics of the City of London as a major hub of global finance. I am investigating the recent history of the City of London Corporation, an overlooked power centre within the system of UK and international finance. The research examines the unusual, public-private hybrid features of the Corporation and how we can understand its material, institutional, and symbolic forms of power. The scholarship has a particular interest in uncovering how the Corporation has reconfigured and survived when faced with major challenges, such as the global financial crisis and the Brexit process.