An interdisciplinary, regional conference entirely organized and conducted by Cornell graduate students will be held on the Cornell campus May 7-9 in Room 401 Warren Hall. The Second Annual Great Lakes Graduate Conference in Political Economy has the theme of "Structures, Processes, Identities and Rights: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Political Economy." Free and open to the public, the conference is sponsored by the International Political Economy Program (IPE) of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

All of the conference's 24 papers were written and will be presented by graduate students from Cornell, Binghamton University and seven Canadian universities, with faculty from the participating institutions acting as panel chairs and discussants.

While the participants come from many disciplines -- economics and political science, but also anthropology, rural sociology, communications, geography and other areas -- they work from a common assumption: that economic relationships are politically constructed.

"The political economy perspective is one that attempts to understand the political dimensions of markets," said Philip McMichael, IPE director and Cornell professor of rural sociology. "Political economists examine issues such as the social impact of economic change and the political relations between social groups such as producers and consumers or employers and employees. They propose an interdisciplinary analysis of major social questions, combining politics, economics, sociology and cultural analysis."

Steve Graw, a conference organizer and graduate student in development sociology, said political economy is rooted in 19th-century European classical social theory but gained greatest currency during the 1960s, when many scholars began rejecting traditional academic approaches to major social issues.

"Political economy challenges the primacy of economics in describing human social and political behavior and institutions; there's more than just the bottom line," Graw said. "We're not dealing with problems in terms of gain and loss or profit or rational choice but in terms of where they're happening and the global scale on which they're occurring."

This approach is reflected in the papers' titles, such as "The Political Economy of Telecommunications Reform in India"; The Future of Cuban Agriculture"; "The Political Economy of Biotechnology Development, Research and Regulation"; "U.S. Welfare Reform -- Another Misused Opportunity"; "Internationalism, Independence and Interest: Transnational Ties and Feminism in China and Taiwan"; and "From Prevention to Coercion? Moral Regulation and AIDS Policy in Canada."

In addition to the papers and panels, the conference will include two workshops for graduate students, one on grant writing and another on publishing.

Graw said the conference provides an ideal forum for graduate students to learn, network and gain valuable feedback.

"Yes, there's the Internet," he said. "But there's nothing like people getting together face to face and maybe even facing off on ideas."

The conference organizers are Graw; Katharine Rankin, city and regional planning; Derek Hall, government; Elena Iankova, industrial and labor relations; and Anupama Dokeniya, communication. Conference programs are available in the Einaudi Center in Uris Hall. For more information about the conference, call McMichael at (607) 255-5495 or Rankin at 256-1947.