What is the primary focus of the ICPEHC event?

The event focuses on the intricate relationship between political economy and historical change, exploring how past events and policies shape current global challenges.

International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC)

Name: International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC)
Start: 2026-09-19T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-19T00:00:00Z
Location: Lima

Sep 19, 2026Lima, PeruIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC) is set to convene in Lima, Peru. This event serves as a critical forum for scholars and practitioners to delve into the intricate relationship between political systems, economic structures, and historical trajectories. Participants will engage in discussions that illuminate how past events and policy decisions continue to shape contemporary global challenges and opportunities. The conference aims to foster a deeper understanding of the forces driving societal evolution, offering a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue. By bringing together diverse perspectives, ICPEHC seeks to advance research and policy recommendations that address complex issues at the intersection of politics, economics, and history.

Committees & topics

Topics
Political Economy and Historical Change · Economic Policies in Historical Context · The Role of Capitalism in History · Historical Analysis of Economic Crises · Political Economy of Globalization · Historical Perspectives on Trade Policies · Economic Inequality and Political Power · Historical Case Studies in Political Economy

Why it matters

Understanding the interplay between political economy and historical change is paramount for navigating the complexities of the modern world. Global events, from trade disputes to social movements, are often rooted in historical precedents and economic power dynamics. This conference provides an essential space for analyzing these foundational elements, offering insights into the long-term consequences of policy choices and societal shifts.

For policymakers and international organizations, the discussions at ICPEHC can inform more robust and historically conscious strategies. By examining case studies and theoretical frameworks from various regions, including those from emerging economies and established powers, attendees can gain a nuanced perspective on global development and conflict. The insights generated here can contribute to more effective governance and sustainable development initiatives.

Furthermore, the conference's focus on historical change underscores the importance of analysis of causation and assessment in understanding current affairs. It encourages a move beyond superficial interpretations to explore the deep-seated structural factors that influence political and economic outcomes. This rigorous approach is vital for anticipating future trends and formulating proactive responses to global challenges.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes of the International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change, delegates should prepare by conducting a dynamic analysis of key historical economic shifts. This involves not only understanding the events themselves but also the underlying political motivations and economic theories that drove them. Consider how different political ideologies have shaped economic policies and, in turn, how these policies have altered historical trajectories.

Attendees should also consider the role of various actors by applying What Is Stakeholder Mapping? and Hidden Stakeholders frameworks. Identifying the primary and secondary stakeholders in historical economic shifts, and understanding their motivations, will enrich discussions. This preparation will allow for a more nuanced contribution to conversations about the long-term impacts of political and economic decisions.

Finally, it is beneficial to research specific examples of political economy in historical change, particularly those relevant to the host region of South America. Examining how political decisions in countries like Peru have influenced their economic development and historical narrative will provide valuable context for the conference's broader themes. This regional focus can highlight unique challenges and successes that inform global perspectives.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Peru

Peru's historical economic development has been significantly shaped by its political landscape, offering rich case studies for the conference's themes.

Role in topic

As the host nation, Peru provides a compelling backdrop for discussions on political economy and historical change, particularly concerning resource extraction, indigenous rights, and economic development in the context of global markets. Its experiences can serve as a practical example for theoretical discussions.

United States

The United States' economic policies and political influence have historically impacted global political economy, particularly in Latin America.

Role in topic

The United States has played a significant role in shaping global economic and political systems. Its historical interventions and economic models offer a critical lens through which to examine the interplay of political power and economic outcomes on an international scale.

China

China's rapid economic growth and evolving political system present a contemporary case study of political economy and historical transformation.

Role in topic

China's unique path of economic reform under a one-party system offers a modern example of how political decisions can drive profound historical and economic change, providing a contrast to Western models and sparking debate on alternative development pathways.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom's historical role as an imperial power and its industrial revolution profoundly influenced global political economy.

Role in topic

The United Kingdom's historical trajectory, from the Industrial Revolution to its colonial legacy, provides extensive material for analyzing the long-term impacts of political and economic decisions on global structures and historical change.

Topics & background

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

Political Economy and Historical Change

The study of political economy emerged in the 18th century with thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and later Karl Marx, who sought to explain how production, distribution, and political power interact to shape societies. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the field diverged into classical, Marxist, Keynesian, and neoclassical traditions, each offering competing accounts of how economic structures drive — and are driven by — political transformation. The Industrial Revolution, the rise of the nation-state, decolonization, and the Cold War each provided crucial case material for understanding how material conditions reshape political orders. Today the discipline is reckoning with new ruptures: the 2008 financial crisis, the slow erosion of the post-1945 liberal order, the rise of China as a state-capitalist competitor, and the climate transition. Scholars debate whether we are witnessing another structural shift comparable to the transitions from feudalism to capitalism or from laissez-faire to embedded liberalism. The core question for delegates is how political institutions and economic systems co-evolve, and what historical patterns illuminate the present moment.

Key players

Economic Policies in Historical Context

Economic policy regimes have shifted dramatically over the past century. The interwar period saw the collapse of the gold standard and the rise of protectionism, culminating in the Great Depression. The Bretton Woods system (1944–1971) institutionalized fixed exchange rates, capital controls, and Keynesian demand management, underwriting the post-war boom. Its collapse opened the way for the neoliberal turn of the late 1970s and 1980s, marked by Thatcherism, Reaganomics, deregulation, and the Washington Consensus that shaped IMF and World Bank prescriptions for the Global South. The 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic punctured confidence in that paradigm. Quantitative easing, large fiscal stimulus, and renewed industrial policy — exemplified by the US CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act, the EU Green Deal, and China's Made in China 2025 — signal a partial return to state-directed economics. Delegates must weigh which historical policy frameworks best inform present challenges of inflation, supply-chain security, and the green transition.

Key players

The Role of Capitalism in History

Capitalism, as a system based on private ownership, wage labor, and market exchange, emerged in late-medieval Europe and consolidated through the enclosure movements, Atlantic trade, and the Industrial Revolution. Its global expansion was inseparable from colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and the imposition of new property regimes across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the system mutate through industrial, financial, welfare, and now digital phases, each generating distinct political coalitions and conflicts. Debate persists over whether capitalism is uniquely generative of growth and innovation or chronically prone to inequality, crisis, and ecological breakdown. The post-Cold War triumphalism captured by Fukuyama's "end of history" has given way to renewed scrutiny — from Piketty's work on capital concentration to critiques of platform capitalism and the climate emergency. Delegates should consider how capitalism's historical variants (Anglo-Saxon, Rhenish, East Asian, state-capitalist) inform contemporary policy choices.

Key players

Historical Analysis of Economic Crises

Economic crises have recurred throughout the capitalist era: the South Sea Bubble (1720), the Panic of 1873, the Great Depression (1929), the stagflation of the 1970s, the Latin American debt crisis (1980s), the Asian financial crisis (1997), the global financial crisis (2008), the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis, and the pandemic-induced shock of 2020. Each followed distinct mechanisms — asset bubbles, currency mismatches, sovereign default, banking collapse — but shared common features of leverage, contagion, and policy failure. Responses have shaped institutions: the Federal Reserve emerged from the Panic of 1907, the IMF and World Bank from the Depression and World War II, the Financial Stability Board from 2008. Today, concerns center on sovereign debt distress across the Global South, commercial real estate stress, and the systemic risks posed by non-bank financial intermediaries and crypto assets. Delegates should draw on historical episodes to evaluate current early-warning frameworks and crisis-resolution architecture.

Key players

Political Economy of Globalization

Modern globalization unfolded in successive waves: the 19th-century era of free trade and gold-standard finance, ruptured by World War I; the post-1945 reconstruction under Bretton Woods; and the hyper-globalization of 1990–2008, marked by China's WTO accession, the rise of global value chains, and the financialization of cross-border capital flows. This third wave delivered rapid poverty reduction in Asia but also stagnant wages in advanced-economy manufacturing regions, fueling political backlash. Since 2016 — Brexit, the Trump tariffs, and the COVID-19 supply-chain shock — globalization has entered a phase of fragmentation, sometimes called "slowbalization" or "de-risking." The US-China rivalry, sanctions regimes against Russia, and industrial-policy competition have reshaped trade and investment patterns. Delegates must assess whether the global economy is genuinely deglobalizing or merely reorganizing along new geopolitical lines.

Key players

Historical Perspectives on Trade Policies

Trade policy has oscillated between liberal and protectionist poles for centuries. Mercantilism dominated early modern Europe; Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 inaugurated a liberal era that collapsed with World War I and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. The GATT (1947) and its successor WTO (1995) institutionalized rules-based multilateral trade liberalization, lowering average tariffs from over 20% in 1947 to under 5% today. Regional agreements — the EU single market, NAFTA/USMCA, ASEAN, RCEP, and CPTPP — supplemented the multilateral system. The WTO's Appellate Body has been paralyzed since 2019 due to US blocking of judicial appointments, and the Doha Round remains effectively dead. Tariffs have returned as a frontline policy instrument: US Section 301 tariffs on China, EU carbon border adjustment, and export controls on semiconductors. Delegates should weigh historical lessons on tariff escalation, retaliation cycles, and the conditions under which liberal trade orders endure.

Key players

Economic Inequality and Political Power

Economic inequality has fluctuated across history. The Gilded Age peaks of the late 19th century gave way to a "great compression" in income shares from the 1940s to 1970s, driven by progressive taxation, strong unions, and welfare-state expansion. Since 1980, inequality has risen sharply within most advanced economies, even as between-country inequality has narrowed thanks to growth in China and India. Thomas Piketty's empirical work, the Occupy movement, and the Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn moments brought distributional politics back to the center of debate. The link between concentrated wealth and political power — through campaign finance, lobbying, media ownership, and regulatory capture — has been documented in studies from Princeton's Gilens and Page to the OECD. Tax havens, the offshore wealth uncovered by the Panama and Pandora Papers, and the OECD's Pillar Two minimum corporate tax all bear on this nexus. Delegates should consider how historical episodes of redistribution were achieved and what political coalitions made them possible.

Key players

Historical Case Studies in Political Economy

Specific national trajectories illuminate broader political-economic dynamics. The Meiji Restoration transformed Japan from feudal isolation to industrial power within a generation. The New Deal redefined the American state's role in the economy. Post-war German Wirtschaftswunder and the East Asian "tiger" economies demonstrated state-coordinated catch-up growth. The Soviet collapse and shock-therapy transitions in Eastern Europe illustrated the perils of rapid institutional change. China's reform era since 1978 stands as the most consequential development story of modern times. Failed or contested cases are equally instructive: Argentina's repeated default cycles, Venezuela's resource-curse collapse, Greece's eurozone crisis, and the uneven outcomes of Washington Consensus reforms in Latin America and Africa. Delegates should use these comparisons to identify the institutional, geopolitical, and ideational factors that produce divergent outcomes from broadly similar starting points.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC).

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

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

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

By committee

Frequently asked questions

International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC)

Sep 19, 2026Lima, PeruIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Political Economy and Historical Change · Economic Policies in Historical Context · The Role of Capitalism in History · Historical Analysis of Economic Crises · Political Economy of Globalization · Historical Perspectives on Trade Policies · Economic Inequality and Political Power · Historical Case Studies in Political Economy

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Peru

Peru's historical economic development has been significantly shaped by its political landscape, offering rich case studies for the conference's themes.

Role in topic

United States

The United States' economic policies and political influence have historically impacted global political economy, particularly in Latin America.

Role in topic

China

China's rapid economic growth and evolving political system present a contemporary case study of political economy and historical transformation.

Role in topic

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom's historical role as an imperial power and its industrial revolution profoundly influenced global political economy.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Political Economy and Historical Change

Key players

Economic Policies in Historical Context

Key players

The Role of Capitalism in History

Key players

Historical Analysis of Economic Crises

Key players

Political Economy of Globalization

Key players

Historical Perspectives on Trade Policies

Key players

Economic Inequality and Political Power

Key players

Historical Case Studies in Political Economy

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Political Economy and Historical Change (ICPEHC).

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

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

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

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

International Conference on Internationalization and Global Perspectives in Higher Education (ICIGPHE)

II Congreso Nacional de la Asociación Peruana de Estudios Internacionales (2026)

V Jornadas Históricas 2026

LATAM Media Leaders Summit 2026

FY Summit 2026

International Research Conference

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

International Conference on Internationalization and Global Perspectives in Higher Education (ICIGPHE)

II Congreso Nacional de la Asociación Peruana de Estudios Internacionales (2026)

V Jornadas Históricas 2026

LATAM Media Leaders Summit 2026

FY Summit 2026

International Research Conference

Frequently asked questions