Many congratulations to Jeffrey M. Chwieroth, Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of International Relations and Co-investigator of the Systemic Risk Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Andrew Walter, Professor of International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, on winning the 2020 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research. The award is in recognition of their book The Wealth Effect: How the Great Expectations of the Middle Class Have Changed the Politics of Banking Crises, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.
Extract from the Prize Jury’s laudation:
"This book is an impressive example of comparative scholarship. It masterfully weaves together an amazing wealth of historical, statistical, and narrative evidence, combining the analysis of long-term historical trends in policies and public opinion, correlational analyses of middle class expectations and policy changes, and historical process tracing of policy responses to systemic banking crises over more than 100 years…
Its focus on finance will change the way we look at comparative politics, and its focus on the interests of the middle classes will change the way we look at the causes and resolutions of major financial crises.
The book’s final warning that ‘[g]reat expectations thus appear destined to produce great disappointments’ which ‘are increasingly shaping politics and policy in hitherto stable democracies’ is a strong message to political scientists to engage with effects of wealth accumulation in their reasonings about democracy, and to policy makers that something has to urgently change."
In celebration of their achievements, you can read The Wealth Effect Part 1 - Banking Crises and the Rise of Great Expectations for FREE until the end of August 2020.
