For this third lecture in the Ouvertures series, Asensio Robles-Lopez, holder of the Sciences Po Aix/Iméra – Albert Hirschman Chair:Albert Hirschman: The passions of Identity between Europe and the Mediterranean 2025-2026, presents his research and gives a historical perspective on globalisation, economic crises and political change. Registration is required to attend this conference.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash.
Globalisation, economic crises and political change: a historical perspective
Is globalisation good for democracy? How are global economic downturns transforming political systems? And why does public debt matter so much? These questions are particularly pressing in today’s world of economic uncertainty, debt-related tensions, austerity debates, anti-immigration pressures and political gridlock. But they are not new: history shows us that we have lived through them before, and there is much to learn from them.
From a historical perspective, this talk takes us back to the 1970s, a key decade in the emergence of today’s globalisation. From the Bretton Woods crisis and the relative decline of the United States to the oil crisis in the Middle East, we will explore how these global economic upheavals contributed to the fall of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain.
The conference will conclude by highlighting certain parallels with the eurozone crisis in Greece and the current debates on debt and austerity in the context of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine.
This conference will be chaired by Carlo Santulli, university professor at Sciences Po Aix.
Practical information
- Date: Thursday, January 15th, 2026 from 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
- Venue: Maison des Astronomes conference room, Iméra, 2 place Leverrier 13004 Marseille
- Language: this conference is in French.
- The room can only accommodate 50 people. Registration is therefore mandatory.
This conference is the third in a series of three conferences, taking place at the rate of one per month between November 2025 and January 2026.
Past conferences :
- Thursday, November 13th, 2025: When anti-racism became postcolonial: the anti-racist turn of the 2000s between colonial memory and the “race question” by Itay Lotem, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, London, UK.
- Thursday, December 11th, 2025: My love affair with cancer: exploring the disease through comics by Josune Urrutia Asua, artist, illustrator and cartoonist.
These meetings will continue in the second half of the year (between February 2026 and June 2026) with three new residents.
About the Ouvertures lecture series
The Ouvertures lecture series is aimed at teacher-researchers, doctoral students and curious and passionate citizens, with the firm intention of keeping open and bright a space of intelligence, curiosity and collective discovery in an increasingly dark age, in which these kinds of spaces are shrinking or disappearing.
In the Ouvertures lectures, international scientists and artists in residence at Iméra will offer an insight into their research on sensitive subjects, conducted without taboos and with honesty.
