What is the format of the ICEPS 2027 conference?

The conference is an in-person event, providing a direct forum for interaction and discussion.

When does the ICEPS 2027 conference take place?

The conference is scheduled for two days in January.

International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027

Name: International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027
Start: 2027-01-11T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-01-12T00:00:00Z
Location: Singapore

Jan 11–12, 2027Singapore, SingaporeIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027 convenes in SGP to foster dialogue and present research at the intersection of economic and political disciplines. This event serves as a platform for academics, researchers, and practitioners to exchange ideas, discuss contemporary challenges, and explore future trends in these critical fields. The conference is structured to encourage interdisciplinary engagement, recognizing that economic policies profoundly influence political landscapes and vice versa.

Committees & topics

Topics
Economics and Statistics · Political Science · Public Administration · Social Science Computing · Continuity and Change in National Systems of Collective Bargaining in a Context of Crisis · Domesticizing Financial Economies · Employers' Organizations, Business Interest Representation, and Employer Collective Action · Inequalities in Youth Labor Transitions

Why it matters

Understanding the intricate relationship between economics and political science is more crucial than ever in a rapidly evolving global environment. Economic decisions by governments and international bodies have direct political consequences, affecting everything from social stability to international relations. Conversely, political systems and governance structures dictate the frameworks within which economic activities can thrive or falter. This conference provides a vital forum for dissecting these complex interdependencies.

The discussions at ICEPS 2027 are particularly relevant for policymakers, who must navigate the dual pressures of economic performance and political legitimacy. For instance, economic policies aimed at growth might face political resistance if they are perceived as inequitable, while political reforms often have significant economic implications. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the conference aims to generate insights that can inform more holistic and effective approaches to global challenges, from sustainable development to geopolitical stability.

How to prepare

Delegates preparing for ICEPS 2027 should focus on developing a robust understanding of current economic theories and their practical political applications. A strong grasp of analytical frameworks, such as those used in Dynamic Analysis, will be beneficial for evaluating the long-term impacts of policy choices. Consider how economic models can be used to predict political outcomes and how political structures can influence economic behavior.

Furthermore, understanding stakeholder dynamics is paramount. The Power-Interest Grid and concepts related to Hidden Stakeholders can provide valuable tools for analyzing the various actors involved in economic and political decision-making processes. Participants should also be prepared to engage in discussions about Engagement Strategies, as effective communication and collaboration are essential for translating research into actionable policy recommendations. A Stakeholder Mapping Workshop approach could be useful in pre-conference preparation to identify key areas of interest and potential collaborators.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Singapore

As the host nation, SGP is a hub for economic innovation and political stability in its region, offering a unique perspective on the interplay between these two fields.

Role in topic

SGP's economic success is often attributed to its pragmatic policies and stable political environment, making it an ideal location to discuss how economic strategies and political governance intertwine. Its experience in navigating global economic shifts while maintaining internal stability provides a valuable case study for conference attendees.

United States

The USA's large and influential economy, coupled with its democratic political system, presents a complex case study for economic and political interactions.

Role in topic

The economic policies and political developments in the USA have significant global ramifications. Discussions on trade policies, fiscal stimulus, and regulatory frameworks from a USA perspective can highlight the challenges and opportunities in balancing economic growth with political considerations.

China

CHN's unique blend of a centrally planned economy and authoritarian political system offers a distinct model for examining economic and political dynamics.

Role in topic

The rapid economic growth of CHN and its approach to global economic engagement, all within a specific political structure, provide a contrasting viewpoint to many Western models. Analyzing CHN's experience can offer insights into alternative pathways for development and governance.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Economics and Statistics

The intersection of economics and statistics has shaped modern policymaking since the development of national accounts in the 1930s and 1940s, when economists such as Simon Kuznets and Richard Stone built the frameworks that became GDP and the System of National Accounts. The postwar Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF and World Bank—institutionalized statistical reporting as a basis for surveillance and lending, while national statistical offices became central to macroeconomic management. Over time, the discipline expanded from aggregate measurement to econometrics, causal inference, and, most recently, the integration of large administrative and digital trace data. The core contemporary disputes concern measurement adequacy and methodological credibility. Critics argue GDP poorly captures welfare, environmental degradation, and the digital economy, prompting initiatives such as the Stiglitz–Sen–Fitoussi Commission and the UN's Beyond GDP agenda. At the same time, the credibility revolution in empirical economics has raised standards for identification, while replication failures and questions about statistical agency independence (notably in Argentina, Greece, and more recently Türkiye) have eroded trust. The 2025 update to the System of National Accounts and OECD work on measuring well-being are reshaping how states report economic activity. Today the field confronts AI-driven nowcasting, privacy-preserving access to administrative microdata, and the harmonization of statistical capacity across developing countries, where the UN Statistical Commission coordinates standards for SDG monitoring.

Key players

Political Science

Political science as a formal discipline emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the American Political Science Association founded in 1903 and European traditions rooted in public law, sociology, and political philosophy. The Cold War accelerated the behavioral revolution and the rise of comparative politics, international relations theory, and rational-choice modeling. Successive waves of democratization—Southern Europe in the 1970s, Latin America in the 1980s, post-communist Europe in the 1990s—reoriented the field toward studying transitions, institutions, and democratic consolidation. The core contemporary debate concerns democratic backsliding and the resilience of liberal institutions. V-Dem, Freedom House, and the Economist Intelligence Unit have documented more than a decade of declines in democratic quality, with hybrid regimes consolidating in Hungary, Türkiye, and parts of South and Southeast Asia. Scholars dispute whether this reflects elite-driven institutional erosion, mass demand for illiberal leadership, or structural pressures from inequality and information disorder. Methodologically, the discipline is grappling with the replication crisis, the rise of computational text analysis, and the ethics of fieldwork in authoritarian settings. The field today also confronts the political consequences of climate change, AI-mediated political communication, and renewed great-power competition, with implications for how political scientists theorize order, legitimacy, and conflict.

Key players

Public Administration

Public administration emerged as a distinct field with Woodrow Wilson's 1887 essay on the study of administration and Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy, which framed the modern professional civil service. The 20th century saw waves of reform: the postwar expansion of the welfare state, the New Public Management movement of the 1980s and 1990s (pioneered in New Zealand, the UK, and Australia) that imported market mechanisms into government, and subsequent reactions emphasizing public value, networked governance, and digital-era governance. The central contemporary disputes concern state capacity and the legitimacy of administrative power. After COVID-19 exposed gaps in public-sector capability, scholars and reformers have pushed back against decades of outsourcing, arguing for renewed in-house expertise—an agenda associated with Mariana Mazzucato and the OECD's work on mission-oriented government. At the same time, governments are deploying AI and algorithmic decision-making in welfare, policing, and immigration, raising due-process concerns highlighted by scandals such as the Dutch childcare benefits affair and the Australian Robodebt scheme. Anti-corruption, civil-service politicization (notably in the United States with Schedule F debates), and the recruitment of younger talent are persistent challenges. Globally, the UN's Committee of Experts on Public Administration and the OECD's Public Governance Directorate coordinate standards, while developing-country reformers focus on building merit-based bureaucracies capable of delivering SDG-aligned services.

Key players

Continuity and Change in National Systems of Collective Bargaining in a Context of Crisis

National systems of collective bargaining were consolidated across most advanced economies in the postwar decades, ranging from highly centralized Nordic and Austrian models to sector-based German co-determination, fragmented Anglo-American enterprise bargaining, and state-mediated Southern European systems. From the 1980s onward, deregulation, declining union density, and the decentralization of bargaining—accelerated by the eurozone crisis and the Troika-imposed reforms in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland—weakened many of these institutions. The ILO's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998, updated 2022) reaffirmed collective bargaining as a core labor right even as coverage eroded. The COVID-19 pandemic, the post-2022 inflation surge, and ongoing energy and supply-chain shocks have reopened questions about whether bargaining systems can deliver wage coordination, employment protection, and adjustment to structural change. The EU's 2022 Adequate Minimum Wages Directive notably requires member states with bargaining coverage below 80% to develop action plans to expand it—reversing decades of decentralization pressure. Meanwhile, platform work, AI-driven workplace monitoring, and just-transition demands in carbon-intensive industries are testing existing bargaining structures. The central dispute is whether national systems can adapt incrementally or require fundamental redesign, and how supranational frameworks (EU, ILO, OECD) should shape that evolution.

Key players

Domesticizing Financial Economies

The 'financialization of everyday life' literature, building on work by scholars such as Greta Krippner, Paul Langley, and Lisa Adkins, traces how since the 1980s households across advanced economies have been drawn into financial markets through mortgages, pensions, consumer credit, and asset-based welfare. The retreat of public provision—housing, retirement, education—pushed risk onto households just as financial deregulation expanded the supply of credit and investment products. The 2008 global financial crisis revealed the consequences when subprime lending, securitization, and household leverage interacted catastrophically, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. The contemporary research agenda examines how finance has become embedded in domestic life: through fintech and buy-now-pay-later products, the rise of retail trading platforms (Robinhood, eToro), the marketization of housing via build-to-rent and short-term rental platforms, and central-bank-driven asset price inflation that widened wealth gaps. Post-2022 interest-rate normalization has stress-tested household balance sheets, particularly in countries with variable-rate mortgages. Regulators including the FCA, ESMA, and CFPB are confronting consumer protection challenges in digital finance, while debates over central bank digital currencies raise new questions about the state's role in household money. The core dispute concerns whether financial inclusion empowers households or transfers systemic risk onto them, and how welfare states should respond.

Key players

Employers' Organizations, Business Interest Representation, and Employer Collective Action

Employers' organizations developed in parallel with trade unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, formalizing collective representation of business in industrial relations, lobbying, and standard-setting. The ILO's tripartite structure—established in 1919 and uniquely involving governments, workers, and employers—institutionalized employer voice in global labor governance through the International Organisation of Employers (IOE). National peak bodies such as Germany's BDA, France's MEDEF, Sweden's Svenskt Näringsliv, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce became central interlocutors in collective bargaining, vocational training, and social policy. The contemporary research agenda, associated with scholars like Peter Swenson, Cathie Jo Martin, and Lucio Baccaro, examines variation in employer organization across coordinated and liberal market economies, and how globalization, financialization, and the rise of multinational and platform firms have weakened employer collective action. In many countries, large firms increasingly prefer individual lobbying or industry-specific coalitions over peak-level coordination, while small and medium employers struggle to sustain membership. Issues such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, ESG regulation, AI governance, and supply-chain compliance are reshaping what employers organize around. The core dispute is whether encompassing employer organizations remain viable—and politically valuable for producing public goods like training systems and wage coordination—or whether business representation is fragmenting into single-issue and sector-specific coalitions.

Key players

Inequalities in Youth Labor Transitions

The school-to-work transition has long been a focus of sociology and labor economics, with comparative scholars such as Walter Müller and David Raffe mapping how educational systems and labor-market institutions shape youth outcomes. Countries with strong vocational tracks and employer involvement—Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark—have historically produced smoother transitions, while Southern European and many Anglophone systems have generated higher youth unemployment and longer periods of precarious work. The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent eurozone crisis devastated youth labor markets in Spain, Greece, and Italy, with youth unemployment peaking above 50% and producing a 'lost generation' debate. Current research, drawing on OECD, ILO, and Eurofound data, documents persistent inequalities by class, gender, ethnicity, and migration status, as well as growing concerns about NEETs (young people not in employment, education, or training), which the ILO estimates at over 20% of global youth. The pandemic disproportionately disrupted young workers in hospitality and retail, while remote-work normalization, AI-driven changes in entry-level jobs, and credential inflation are reshaping early careers. The EU Youth Guarantee, reinforced in 2020, and national apprenticeship reforms aim to mitigate these inequalities with mixed results. Key disputes concern whether activation policies, vocational expansion, or broader social investment are most effective, and how to address widening gaps between credentialed and non-credentialed youth and between metropolitan and peripheral regions.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

The Power-Interest Grid

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Singapore January 2027

By committee

Frequently asked questions

International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027

Jan 11–12, 2027Singapore, SingaporeIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Economics and Statistics · Political Science · Public Administration · Social Science Computing · Continuity and Change in National Systems of Collective Bargaining in a Context of Crisis · Domesticizing Financial Economies · Employers' Organizations, Business Interest Representation, and Employer Collective Action · Inequalities in Youth Labor Transitions

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Singapore

As the host nation, SGP is a hub for economic innovation and political stability in its region, offering a unique perspective on the interplay between these two fields.

Role in topic

United States

The USA's large and influential economy, coupled with its democratic political system, presents a complex case study for economic and political interactions.

Role in topic

China

CHN's unique blend of a centrally planned economy and authoritarian political system offers a distinct model for examining economic and political dynamics.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Economics and Statistics

Key players

Political Science

Key players

Public Administration

Key players

Continuity and Change in National Systems of Collective Bargaining in a Context of Crisis

Key players

Domesticizing Financial Economies

Key players

Employers' Organizations, Business Interest Representation, and Employer Collective Action

Key players

Inequalities in Youth Labor Transitions

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Economics and Political Science (ICEPS) 2027.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

The Power-Interest Grid

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Singapore January 2027

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Regional Outlook Forum 2026 – Confronting Chaos: The Future of International Order in Southeast Asia

Raffles Policy Dialogue 2026

International Conference on Privacy and Information Security Law (ICPISL)

IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026: Managing Regional Tensions Amid Global Competition

SISMUN Conclave 2026

International Conference on Public Policy, Globalization, and Democratic Rights (ICPPGDR - 26)

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Regional Outlook Forum 2026 – Confronting Chaos: The Future of International Order in Southeast Asia

Raffles Policy Dialogue 2026

International Conference on Privacy and Information Security Law (ICPISL)

IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026: Managing Regional Tensions Amid Global Competition

SISMUN Conclave 2026

International Conference on Public Policy, Globalization, and Democratic Rights (ICPPGDR - 26)

Frequently asked questions