Nick Bernards
@nickbernards.bsky.social
Critical Political Economist -- Author: A critical history of poverty finance (http://bit.ly/3pEV7Cf); Fictions of financialization (http://bit.ly/3PUWzdR) -- Reader in Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick.
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Views mine.
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Nick Bernards
@nickbernards.bsky.social
· Jul 12
New article!
In this extended introduction to an imminent SI, I argue for renewed engagement with key Marxist debates about exploitation as a way of understanding the mutations of contemporary global capitalism.
Now out in @NPEjournal! (Open Access)
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
In this extended introduction to an imminent SI, I argue for renewed engagement with key Marxist debates about exploitation as a way of understanding the mutations of contemporary global capitalism.
Now out in @NPEjournal! (Open Access)
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Nothing I wrote in 2024, nevermind 2025, is out yet, but this piece I mostly wrote in 2022 was published in July so there’s that:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Centring exploitation in global political economy
This article introduces a special issue on ‘Centring Exploitation in Global Political Economy'. The article and broader collection argue for wider engagement with Marxist debates about ‘exploitatio...
www.tandfonline.com
December 31, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Nothing I wrote in 2024, nevermind 2025, is out yet, but this piece I mostly wrote in 2022 was published in July so there’s that:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
This is wild. At no point at the peak of structural adjustment would you have heard the IMF or WB say:
‘Turn every possible state-owned resource into an asset, every possible state-owned asset into a security, and leverage all possible state-owned funds.’
www.ft.com/content/2d9e...
‘Turn every possible state-owned resource into an asset, every possible state-owned asset into a security, and leverage all possible state-owned funds.’
www.ft.com/content/2d9e...
China’s cash-strapped local governments drive record sales of asset-backed securities
ABS issues bring in badly needed money but some assets are of uncertain quality
www.ft.com
December 29, 2025 at 3:51 PM
This is wild. At no point at the peak of structural adjustment would you have heard the IMF or WB say:
‘Turn every possible state-owned resource into an asset, every possible state-owned asset into a security, and leverage all possible state-owned funds.’
www.ft.com/content/2d9e...
‘Turn every possible state-owned resource into an asset, every possible state-owned asset into a security, and leverage all possible state-owned funds.’
www.ft.com/content/2d9e...
Reposted by Nick Bernards
Me and Mary Robertson in @ripejournal.bsky.social articulating a Marxist perspective on race, racialisation and subprime in a special issue on Raced Finance expertly co-edited by @iliasalami.bsky.social @alibhagat.bsky.social @vincentguermond.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Locating race in capitalism’s laws of motion: the case of subprime
Through a critical engagement with the racial capitalism literature, this article problematizes interpretations of the subprime crisis that foreground expropriation and the historical continuity of...
www.tandfonline.com
December 26, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Me and Mary Robertson in @ripejournal.bsky.social articulating a Marxist perspective on race, racialisation and subprime in a special issue on Raced Finance expertly co-edited by @iliasalami.bsky.social @alibhagat.bsky.social @vincentguermond.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
This is an excellent article from Ben Hetherington, a PhD student I’m very lucky to work with 👇
NEW ARTICLE 📖 Restoring former saltpans in France’s Camargue reveals tensions between climate risk, economic precarity, and differing views of nature. These conflicts have limited support for the project and challenged its framing as a nature-based solution. www.revue-mem.com/571
Situating vulnerability in relation to nature(s): the case of a saltpan restoration project in the Camargue – Mutations en Méditerranée
This article discusses the implementation of an ecosystem restoration project on formerly exploited saltpans in the Camargue, France, to interrogate human and non-human types of vulnerability. Using a...
www.revue-mem.com
December 18, 2025 at 11:10 AM
This is an excellent article from Ben Hetherington, a PhD student I’m very lucky to work with 👇
Reposted by Nick Bernards
I have a new open access article out, co-authored with @alejopedregal.bsky.social and Nemanja Lukić, called 'For an Anti-Imperialist Ecological Modernity'. The article introduces a special issue we've edited on ecomodernism and imperialism. But it does much more than that. A thread. 1/13
December 13, 2025 at 7:45 PM
I have a new open access article out, co-authored with @alejopedregal.bsky.social and Nemanja Lukić, called 'For an Anti-Imperialist Ecological Modernity'. The article introduces a special issue we've edited on ecomodernism and imperialism. But it does much more than that. A thread. 1/13
Reposted by Nick Bernards
I wrote a paper about Cryptofinance, and the ways the U.S. state has negotiated the consolidation of cryptocurrency trading in large platform firms. It traces the rise of FTX (Sam Bankman-Fried's firm) as it moves from Berkeley to Hong Kong to the Bahamas.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
From cryptocurrency to cryptofinance: FTX, disintermediation and the US state
During the first decade of cryptocurrencies (2008–2017) there were few connections established between crypto and the conventional finance sector, but in the US in 2025 the integration of these two...
www.tandfonline.com
December 12, 2025 at 2:51 PM
I wrote a paper about Cryptofinance, and the ways the U.S. state has negotiated the consolidation of cryptocurrency trading in large platform firms. It traces the rise of FTX (Sam Bankman-Fried's firm) as it moves from Berkeley to Hong Kong to the Bahamas.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Nick Bernards
New post where I push a little bit further on my previous writing on agroecology being a project of class suicide and why this means small privately-owned farms are not the vehicle of change for agroecology as too often supposed
thestruggleforland.substack.com/p/towards-an...
thestruggleforland.substack.com/p/towards-an...
Towards an agroecological theory of change
Small, privately-owned farms and localised markets can never achieve agroecology, therefore the movement needs a new strategy.
thestruggleforland.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:53 AM
New post where I push a little bit further on my previous writing on agroecology being a project of class suicide and why this means small privately-owned farms are not the vehicle of change for agroecology as too often supposed
thestruggleforland.substack.com/p/towards-an...
thestruggleforland.substack.com/p/towards-an...
Along with all the obvious ways this is stupid, it’s bothering me that the guys having lunch on the steel beam in the original photo were decidedly not the ‘architects’.
It’s all very ‘bourgeois pretense of doing labour’…
It’s all very ‘bourgeois pretense of doing labour’…
December 12, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Along with all the obvious ways this is stupid, it’s bothering me that the guys having lunch on the steel beam in the original photo were decidedly not the ‘architects’.
It’s all very ‘bourgeois pretense of doing labour’…
It’s all very ‘bourgeois pretense of doing labour’…
Reposted by Nick Bernards
In the 1980s, a monster was assembled in the pharmaceutical world that pitted patients' interests against those of pharmaceutical investors: the neoliberal pharma model. In PEAK PHARMA w/ @susigeiger.bsky.social, out today @academic.oup.com, we show that this monster is entering a crucial phase...
December 11, 2025 at 4:07 PM
In the 1980s, a monster was assembled in the pharmaceutical world that pitted patients' interests against those of pharmaceutical investors: the neoliberal pharma model. In PEAK PHARMA w/ @susigeiger.bsky.social, out today @academic.oup.com, we show that this monster is entering a crucial phase...
Reposted by Nick Bernards
I have a new paper out in @ripejournal.bsky.social:
From colonial economics to structural adjustment: race, neoliberal ideology, and pernicious financial inclusion
It's Open Access!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
From colonial economics to structural adjustment: race, neoliberal ideology, and pernicious financial inclusion
It's Open Access!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
From colonial economics to structural adjustment: race, neoliberal ideology, and pernicious financial inclusion
This paper brings together scholarship on the history of neoliberal thought with the emerging ‘raced finance’ research agenda. The paper makes a methodological and an empirical contribution. First,...
www.tandfonline.com
December 11, 2025 at 9:27 AM
I have a new paper out in @ripejournal.bsky.social:
From colonial economics to structural adjustment: race, neoliberal ideology, and pernicious financial inclusion
It's Open Access!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
From colonial economics to structural adjustment: race, neoliberal ideology, and pernicious financial inclusion
It's Open Access!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
It’s socialism or barbarism, and the ‘centre left’ will choose barbarism every time…
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
We must protect our borders to defend our democracies. Here's how
This is our strong message to our friends in Europe. Unless responsible governments reflect their citizens’ concerns, populists will win, say British PM Keir Starmer and Danish PM Mette Frederiksen
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 8:06 AM
It’s socialism or barbarism, and the ‘centre left’ will choose barbarism every time…
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This is v. good 👇
🚨NEW ESSAY🚨: Read Rebekah Diski on trade union politics in an era of rearmament, genocide and climate breakdown.
transitionsecurity.org/bread-and-bu...
transitionsecurity.org/bread-and-bu...
Bread and Butter Is Not Enough
Trade unions are grappling with an era of rearmament and climate breakdown. Amid these crises, a renewed labour internationalism is needed.
transitionsecurity.org
December 9, 2025 at 2:17 PM
This is v. good 👇
Reposted by Nick Bernards
Speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, yes leadership is apparently planning to cut 50% of the faculty at the New School for Social Research in order to eliminate social research and replace scholarship with a trendy MA degree mill For the 21st Century 1/
December 6, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, yes leadership is apparently planning to cut 50% of the faculty at the New School for Social Research in order to eliminate social research and replace scholarship with a trendy MA degree mill For the 21st Century 1/
Reposted by Nick Bernards
🔊 Dear Colleagues & Comrades! We are pleased to announce a network dedicated to addressing the omission of Palestine and the ongoing genocide within UK-based American Studies. We are hosting a symposium in Central London on the 9th May 2026. Abstracts are due on 6th February 2026. Please circulate!
November 28, 2025 at 12:54 PM
🔊 Dear Colleagues & Comrades! We are pleased to announce a network dedicated to addressing the omission of Palestine and the ongoing genocide within UK-based American Studies. We are hosting a symposium in Central London on the 9th May 2026. Abstracts are due on 6th February 2026. Please circulate!
Everything at Pluto is half off this monrth -- along with a lot of other great books, this means you can get a copy of Fictions of Financialization for pretty cheap at the moment!
www.plutobooks.com/product/fict...
www.plutobooks.com/product/fict...
Fictions of Financialization - Pluto Press
What if the financial sector isn’t the real enemy?
www.plutobooks.com
December 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Everything at Pluto is half off this monrth -- along with a lot of other great books, this means you can get a copy of Fictions of Financialization for pretty cheap at the moment!
www.plutobooks.com/product/fict...
www.plutobooks.com/product/fict...
Really enjoying this!
November 25, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Really enjoying this!
It feels likely that, alongside redundancies, at least some UK universities respond to a tax on international student fees by raising international recruitment targets to try to make up the shortfall per student…
November 25, 2025 at 10:52 AM
It feels likely that, alongside redundancies, at least some UK universities respond to a tax on international student fees by raising international recruitment targets to try to make up the shortfall per student…
Reposted by Nick Bernards
OUT NOW "Remittances as translocal collateral: How microfinance profitably sustains precarity in Cambodia"
@vincentguermond.bsky.social as lead, bringing together !5! studies on the relationship between migration, remittances, and microfinance debt.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
@vincentguermond.bsky.social as lead, bringing together !5! studies on the relationship between migration, remittances, and microfinance debt.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
November 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
OUT NOW "Remittances as translocal collateral: How microfinance profitably sustains precarity in Cambodia"
@vincentguermond.bsky.social as lead, bringing together !5! studies on the relationship between migration, remittances, and microfinance debt.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
@vincentguermond.bsky.social as lead, bringing together !5! studies on the relationship between migration, remittances, and microfinance debt.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Nick Bernards
Important new report out on precarious working conditions in Geography in UK HE. Sadly the nature and scale of the findings are grim but unsurprising. www.rgs.org/research/hig...
States of precarity in UK Higher Education geography
Findings from a discipline-focused research project exploring the lived realities of precarious academic work within UK Higher Education geography.
www.rgs.org
November 21, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Important new report out on precarious working conditions in Geography in UK HE. Sadly the nature and scale of the findings are grim but unsurprising. www.rgs.org/research/hig...
Probably as good a time as any for Sivanandan on the British state's contortions around immigration.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
November 21, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Probably as good a time as any for Sivanandan on the British state's contortions around immigration.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
New commentary!
I’ve been doing some work on World Bank experiments with trust funds for conservation in the 1990s.
It looks like, having run out of other ways to private finance our way out of climate crisis, they’re back at COP 30 with the TFFF.
theconversation.com/the-worlds-n...
I’ve been doing some work on World Bank experiments with trust funds for conservation in the 1990s.
It looks like, having run out of other ways to private finance our way out of climate crisis, they’re back at COP 30 with the TFFF.
theconversation.com/the-worlds-n...
The world’s new US$125 billion rainforest trust fund revives a 1990s idea – and shows its limits
Cop30’s flagship Tropical Forests Forever announcement puts investors before rainforests.
theconversation.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:24 AM
New commentary!
I’ve been doing some work on World Bank experiments with trust funds for conservation in the 1990s.
It looks like, having run out of other ways to private finance our way out of climate crisis, they’re back at COP 30 with the TFFF.
theconversation.com/the-worlds-n...
I’ve been doing some work on World Bank experiments with trust funds for conservation in the 1990s.
It looks like, having run out of other ways to private finance our way out of climate crisis, they’re back at COP 30 with the TFFF.
theconversation.com/the-worlds-n...
Reposted by Nick Bernards
Lise Vogel’s The Contested Domain (edited by me) is officially released today!!! I hope it will be a resource for people interested in Lise’s rigorous approach to social thought (spanning 5 decades) that creates theoretical openings for an inclusive Marxist Feminism.
November 20, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Lise Vogel’s The Contested Domain (edited by me) is officially released today!!! I hope it will be a resource for people interested in Lise’s rigorous approach to social thought (spanning 5 decades) that creates theoretical openings for an inclusive Marxist Feminism.
Reposted by Nick Bernards
New essay, written for the excellent @transitionsec.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 8:36 AM
New essay, written for the excellent @transitionsec.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
Reposted by Nick Bernards
Why do global environmental institutions multiply and persist even when they seem unable to address biodiversity loss and environmental governance failures effectively?
Our new OA article with @jacquelinebest.bsky.social in @risjnl.bsky.social tries to answer this question. 1/7
cup.org/4hZNlcX
Our new OA article with @jacquelinebest.bsky.social in @risjnl.bsky.social tries to answer this question. 1/7
cup.org/4hZNlcX
Failure-proof or failure-prone? The paradoxes of global biodiversity institutions | Review of International Studies | Cambridge Core
Failure-proof or failure-prone? The paradoxes of global biodiversity institutions
cup.org
November 19, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Why do global environmental institutions multiply and persist even when they seem unable to address biodiversity loss and environmental governance failures effectively?
Our new OA article with @jacquelinebest.bsky.social in @risjnl.bsky.social tries to answer this question. 1/7
cup.org/4hZNlcX
Our new OA article with @jacquelinebest.bsky.social in @risjnl.bsky.social tries to answer this question. 1/7
cup.org/4hZNlcX