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This project concerns the organization of the 4th International Conference on the "Political Economy of International Organizations" (PEIO IV) in Zurich on January 26-29, 2011. This conference is a follow-up of an initial conference on the same topic held in Ascona from 3 to 8 February, 2008, as well as two follow-up conferences in Geneva 2009 (PEIO II, co-financed by the SNF) and in Washington 2010 (PEIO III). These conferences brought together economists and political scientists working on the political economy of different international organizations, in particular the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the EU. While the work by economists and political scientists working in this field overlaps considerably, there are, so far, only few other platforms encouraging the exchange across disciplines. The current deficiencies in communication across disciplines are immediately obvious when looking at citations in economic and political science journals. With our series of conferences, we intend to bridge the communication gap and to establish a more sustainable basis for the international and interdisciplinary exchange on this subject.With this objective in mind, it was decided to repeat the conference on a regular basis. All three previous conferences were considered extremely fruitful by all participants. They provided greater visibility to our undertaking, leading to a strong increase in high quality paper submissions, and broadening the group of participants. An international organizing committee was created in order to ensure the follow-up, to shape the orientation of future conferences and to referee the papers submitted in response to our call for papers. This high level committee also ensures participation from different continents, and provides some financial support. For the conference planned in Zurich, we thus obtain substantial co-financing, not only from the locally organizing institutions (ETH and University of Zurich), but also from the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Princeton University.With PEIO I and II and IV taking place in Switzerland and organized by scholars from Swiss universities (ETH, Graduate Institute, University of Zurich and University of Geneva), Swiss research in this area gets a special opportunity to become a relevant part of the expected long-term international exchange.
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