Conference - Small countries and the global crisis: challenges and opportunities?
Date: 1st July 2009
Location: Hilton Hotel, Cardiff
A conference co-organized by the Wales Governance Centre and the Welsh Assembly Government, with the support of the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD).
In 2007 a financial crisis began in the United States subprime mortgage markets which subsequently developed into a near collapse of the world’s global finance system. The global melt-down was averted only by massive interventions by the major developed countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We are still in the midst of this crisis which is now affecting the real economy. Some commentators have argued that we are witnessing the end of an era of globalization: - an era of unprecedented economic growth but also a period which saw the growth of regionalization movements and strengthened decentralization in France, Italy and Spain and devolution in the UK.
Today, central governments are redefining their relations with global and financial institutions and with each other. New forms of regulation and new international institutions are likely to emerge from the present crisis.
As large national states reformulate their relations with the financial and economic systems, regions and small countries such as Wales, Scotland and Catalonia, and small sovereign states such as Ireland and Finland, are faced with new challenges. This conference explored what form these challenges might take and what institutional and policy responses the small countries might adopt. It also examined the consequences for ordinary citizens and their impact on the delivery of services as well as democratic practice.
After a decade of devolution, how do smaller countries such as Wales stand in this world? What will be their new challenges and opportunities? What can the world learn from their experiences of smaller scale governance?
Conference documents
- Conference programme
- Small country governance and public service delivery: Central-local relations in Wales - Steve Martin (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University)
- The answer of Europe’s regional and local authorities - Gerhard Stahl (Secretary General of the Committee of the Regions, European Union)
- ‘Welfare nationalism’, social citizenship and the economic downturn: Wales in comparative European perspective - Daniel Wincott (Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University)
- Can Britishness resist the economic crisis? - Arthur Aughey (University of Ulster)
- Shadows of the Enlightenment in globalized plurinational contexts: a theoretical and comparative approach. The case of Catalonia (Spanish only) - Ferran Requejo (University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
