York Maastricht Partnership: Development Transformations Workshop on States and Emerging Markets

The “Development Transformations” workshop series brings together researchers from both institutions, along with leading scholars from the Global South, to explore critical themes in global development. The first workshop was led by Jean Grugel (University of York) and Adam Dixon, (University of Maastricht) on the sub-theme of “States and Emerging Markets”.

The workshop began with rounds of research “speed-networking” to begin teasing out areas of research overlap, followed by group discussions around targeted questions and wider debate. 

The capacity of the state to deliver governance emerged early as a recurring topic in all group sessions, along with the theoretical framework for how we engage with the concept of development itself. The workshop also brought to the fore issues relating to how to frame and understand the changing roles of states and markets in development.

There was consensus that neither governance through democratic nor populist pathways plans for more than one generation and this absence of planning for future generations emerged an important area for further attention. 

Outcomes and Next Steps

The year-long series of interdisciplinary workshops will provide a strong foundation for partnership on global development research between the two universities. Each workshop will explore areas of development studies where researchers from both institutions might be ”talking in the same way”; to uncover areas where there are intellectual shared approaches and to highlight themes and ideas that could be taken forward into future work.

The workshops focus on four different dimension of transformations, culminating in a policy colloquium in Brussels. These are: 

• States and Emerging Markets
• Global Health 
• Migration
• Environment 

Calls for Papers for future workshops will be open to all researchers from the Universities of York and Maastricht, and we’re committed to ensuring a balanced and diverse profile of workshop attendees. If you are interested in participating, please contact us: igdc@york.ac.uk