Call for Papers: The Geoeconomics of Electric Batteries

Deadline: April 1, 2024 

About Fordulat 

Fordulat: Journal of Social Theory is a Hungarian interdisciplinary journal for social sciences and heterodox political economy. Over the past two decades, Fordulat has played a crucial role in the emergence of a young generation of critical scholars, and it is today the foremost outlet for independent and politically engaged social science scholarship in Hungary. 

About the Special Issue on The Geoeconomics of Electric Batteries 

Fordulat: Journal of Social Theory is launching an international Call for Papers on the theme of “The Geoeconomics of Electric Batteries”. 

Hungary has become a central node in the EU’s green industrial policies as a site which links German car manufacturing and East Asian battery manufacturing supply chains. The rapid growth of foreign-owned battery gigafactories reliant on fossil fuel energy generation and foreign temporary workers has become a politicized issue facing environmental, racist, and developmentalist objections from local communities, civil society organizations, experts, as well as political parties from the far right to the left. 

The Special Issue on “The Geoeconomics of Electric Batteries” seeks to position the Hungarian experience in a global geoeconomic context marked by geopolitical rivalries between the US and China, competing vertical industrial policies, and decarbonization. These factors have led to rapid reconfigurations in Global Production Networks (GPNs), linking multiple sectoral supply chains from mining to chemicals, battery manufacturing, the automotive industry, as well as energy generation, storage, and retail. 

We are looking for empirically informed papers focusing on individual or comparative case studies from the entire Global Production Network of electric batteries (including but not limited to lithium-based batteries), as well as theoretical contributions, which propose novel ways to rethink the global geoeconomics of electric batteries from a historically- and geographically informed perspective on multi-scalar transformations in global capitalism. 

Potential Topics: 

• The Political and Economic Place of Labor in Electric Battery GPNs 

• Labor Mobilities and Labor Movements in Electric Battery GPNs 
• The Geoeconomics of Green Industrial Policies in Electric Batteries 
• Mapping Change in the Structure of Electric Battery GPNs 
• The Changing Role of States in Electric Battery GPNs as venture capitalists, producers, buyers, regulators etc. 
• Core-Periphery polarizations across Electric Battery GPNs 
• Ecological Modernization Imaginaries in Electric Battery GPNs 
• Social and Political Struggles Around Local Projects in Electric Battery GPNs 
• The Social and Environmental Infrastructure of Electric Battery Production 
• Gendered, Racialized, and Class hierarchies in Battery GPNs 
• Local and Transnational Alliances in Electric Battery GPNs 
• Regional Integration and the Regionalization of Supply Chains 
• Distributive Conflicts Around Value Capture and Profits in Electric Battery GPNs 

We expect abstracts of maximum 500 words, as well as a 100-word bio from authors to be sent to szerk@fordulat.net by April 1, 2024. The editors will select among submitted proposals in April 2024. The authors should final papers (8000 word-count including bibliography) should be submitted by September 1, 2024. After a round of peer reviews, authors will be informed about acceptance for publication, R&R, or rejection decisions by November 2024. The Special Issue will be published in 2025. 

The articles will be translated into and published in Hungarian. The editors also aim to compile a special issue in English soon after publishing the Hungarian one. 

We also welcome a limited number of proposals for Book Reviews: We expect a 100-word bio by the author of the review as well as a 200-word summary identifying the theme, scope, and relevance of the proposed book, as well as the expected contributions of the review. We would also accept applications for book reviews without a pre-selected book: in this case, the editors may suggest titles for review. 

Editors of the Special Issue: 

Dávid Karas, Klára Nagy and Kristóf Nagy 

The Editorial Team of Fordulat: 

Laura Bozsik, Virág Ilona Buka, Adél Csűrök, Lilla Eredics, Eszter Horváth, Sára Lafferton, András Papp, Eszter Váradi