Mareike Beck
Associate Professor in International Political Economy
Advice and Feedback Hours:
Thursdays 15.30 - 17.30 on Teams, .
Or e-mail if you need a different time.
I am Associate Professor in International Political Economy. Previously, I was Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King鈥檚 College London, after having finished my PhD at the University of Sussex. I am co-editor for , associate editor for and I co-convened from 2022-2024.
My research agenda focuses on the drivers and impacts of financialisation at the global and everyday level. My work addresses this in three inter-related areas:
First, I am interested in the socio-political history of global finance. My book (Cambridge University Press) develops a novel conceptualisation, extroverted financialisation, to frame the US Americanisation of global finance. It re-tells the history of European and German financialisation from the perspective of European banks. I portray them as active participants in offshore financial markets and in generating their own USD dependency, albeit from a peripheral position. More generally, I am interested in the uneven nature of the USD-based global financial architecture, and how this has shaped financial globalisation, innovations in on- and offshore finance, and financial instability. See an .
Secondly, using a feminist political economy approach to understand gender and inequality, I investigate how everyday and global finance interact within households and housing to produce various forms of asset-based inequalities in financialised economies.
My third area of interest concerns creative and performative methodologies for knowledge exchange and impact. I regularly engage with civil society groups and local communities. For example, in May 2023, I directed and performed in an aerial acrobatics circus show that performed feminist political economy theorising of homes in their dual function as (1) an everyday living space and (2) a global financial asset.
Watch my mini-documentary about housing inequality that uses my Brighton Fringe Aerial Circus show to talk about homes, debt and political economy.
Publications
- Beck, 2025. . Cambridge University Press
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Beck, M, James, S, 2026. Systemic Pensions: The Epistemic Politics of Liability-Driven Investment Strategies.Journal of European Public Policy 0, 1–25.
- Beck, M, Knafo, S & Sgambati, S, 2023. Leveraging financial claims: transatlantic bank struggles and the power of US finance. In B Braun & K Koddenbrock (eds), Capital Claims: Power and Global Finance.
- Beck, M, 2022. Extroverted financialization: how US finance shapes European banking.
- Beck, M, 2022. The managerial contradictions of extroverted financialization: the rise and fall of Deutsche Bank.
- Beck, M & Knafo, S, 2020. . In: Braun, B and Koddenbrock, K (eds): Capital claims: The political economy of global finance, Routledge
- Beck, M & Germann, J, 2019. Managerial power in the German model: the case of Bertelsmann and the antecedents of neoliberalism .
Teaching and Supervision
- Foundations of Political Economy (PO133, 1st year)
- International Political Economy: States, Markets and Global Capitalism (PO230, 2nd year)
I am open to supervising undergraduates and postgraduates dissertations as well as doctoral candidates on key issues in global political economy. I particularly welcome the following themes:
- Global Finance and Banking
- Feminist Political Economy of the Household / Everyday
- Inequality
- Housing and Real Estate
- Comparative and European Political Economy
- Historical Methods and Radical Historicism
Media
Listen to this podcast about how concepts of inequality, homes, and debt are turned into aerial acrobatics:
and this podcast on knowledge exchange through aerial acrobatics circus, including audience responses:
See