Dr Greig Charnock

Greig completed his PhD at Manchester in 2005. Since then he has taught International Politics at Manchester.

He is currently MA Pathway Director for International Political Economy, a member of the Global Political Economy Research Cluster, an associate of the Political Economy Institute, and convener of the Politics Seminar series.

He is a member of the editorial board of Capital & Class (journal of the Conference of Socialist Economists), co-convener (with Hugo Radice, Stuart Shields and Werner Bonefeld) of the CSE's 'Trans-Pennine Working Group', and is a member of the Global Competitiveness Research Group based at the Institute for Global Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Greig came to the University of Manchester in 2000 to complete a Masters in International Political Economy, during which time decided to remain at Manchester to undertake a PhD looking at state restructuring processes attributed to neoliberal globalisation. His doctoral and immediate post-doctoral research examined the role of international organisations in the process of state reform, and with a focus on the Latin American region.

More recently, Greig's research has sought to explore social theories of the production of space - for example, in the writing of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey and Neil Smith - in order to understand how time and space are related to capitalism and the world. The empirical focus of this research is on the role of competitive cities in the knowledge economy, and on current processes of urban transformation in Barcelona, in particular.

 

Global Competitiveness and Urban Change in Barcelona

This collaborative project (with Ramon Ribera-Fumaz, UOC, Barcelona) examines urban regeneration currently in process in Poblenou, once the industrial heartland of Barcelona (dubbed the 'Catalan Manchester'), and now the district of the city strategically targeted as the 'space for the concentration of knowledge-intensive activities' by Barcelona City Council. By grounding the research in heterodox social theory, the project aims to provide fresh insights into the changing dynamics of competitive cities in relation to wider globalisation processes, as well as an original analysis of the relationship between planning and governance institutions and communities experiencing these changes on an everyday basis. The project has received funding from the School of Social Science.

The Anglo-Catalan Production of the 'Barcelona Model'

This is a collaborative project involving researchers from the UK and Catalonia, and is funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya.  The project looks at how the so-called 'Barcelona Model' of urban generation has influenced policy-makers in the UK and whether 'feedback' between the UK and Barcelona has shaped regeneration strategies in Catalonia. The project therefore seeks to make a methodological and empirical contribution to the emergent field of 'urban policy mobilities'.

Greig is on research leave during the second semester of 2009/10 and will not be convening any modules during this academic year.

Publications Database

Charnock, G (2010) 'Challenging New State Spatialities: The Open Marxism of Henri Lefebvre', Antipode (special issue on 'New State Spatiality'), in press.

Charnock, G (2009) 'Why do Institutions Matter? Global Competitiveness and the Politics of Policies in Latin America', Capital & Class, 98: 67-99.

Charnock, G (2008) 'Competitiveness and Critique: The Value of a New Materialist Research Project', Historical Materialism, 16, 2: 117-141.

Charnock, G. (2006) 'Improving the Mechanisms of Global Governance? The Ideational Impact of the World Bank on Mexico's National Reform Agenda', New Political Economy, 11, 1: 73-98

Charnock, G. (2005) 'The Crisis of Foxism? The Political Economy of Fiscal Reform in Mexico', Capital & Class, 86: 1-8.

Greig is keen to supervise postgraduate research in the following areas:

Critical social and socio-spatial theory; international/global political economy; the political economy of development; the politics of global competitiveness; urban political economy

Completed PhD Students

Japhy Wilson, Abstract Space and the Plan Puebla Panama: A Lefebvrian Critique of Regional Development in Southern Mexico (ESRC funded). Japhy is currently Teaching Fellow in International Politics at The University of Manchester.

Current PhD Students

Myriam Jaqueline Gómez Méndez, An Analysis of Social Protection in Argentina (University of Guadalajara scholarship)

Tom Houseman, The Bretton Woods Institutions and the Conceptualisation of 'Poverty' (ESRC funded)

Tom Purcell, A Marxian Analysis of 'Endogenous Development' in Venezuela: A Critique of the Landlord State under Chávez (University of Manchester bursary)

Giulia Sirigu, The Strategic-Relational Approach and Mexican Foreign Policy under Fox (Regiona Sardegna scholarship)