This panel addresses how policymakers have grappled with the challenge of political market disruption—specifically, the disruption of commodity markets—during the 1970s and 1980s. Each of the three panelists—all of whom are emerging scholars new to the BHC—spotlight a different commodity type (oil, money, and food crops), but they each present a story of policy actors trying to change or adapt to changes in commodity market dynamics. They are, essentially, accounts of efforts by various actors to “fix” markets that appeared to them imperiled or warped by political developments. In the process, the various actors attempt to politically reconstruct markets, sometimes producing unanticipated new controversies.
A particular virtue of this panel is that each paper focuses on a different set of actors, all of whom have different tools for exerting influence on the markets in question. One paper focuses on the direct influence of presidential decision-making in trying to ensure global oil supplies during a war between two principal producer states. Another focuses on the indirect influence of scientists interested in diversifying and improving the American diet. The last highlights the collaboration between the leading international finance institution and private sector banks in adapting to the financial consequences of the 1970s Oil Shocks and their aftermath. These actors have different capabilities. They each affect change in their own ways, presenting a well-rounded picture of agency in the global economy.
Additionally, each scholar connects their specific case study to larger thematic questions, showing that strategies for altering commodity market dynamics were inevitably tied to other, broader political questions: of Cold War geopolitics; of relations between the “First World” and the “Third World;” and of the balance of power among states, firms, and intergovernmental organizations in structuring and managing the global economy. Attendees will consequently be presented with a layered look at the impact of commodity market changes on the world at large, which should provoke a rich discussion of the panelists’ papers.