Jon Shefner, Betty Lynn Hendrickson Professor of Social Science and Head, University of Tennessee-Knoxville Colloquium Series Co-sponsored by the Program in Environmental and Sustainability Studies Wednesday, March 30, 2016 – 12:30 p.m.Kissam Center, Room C216
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Jon Shefner is the Betty Lynn Hendrickson Professor of Social Science, Professor of Sociology, and Department Head of Sociology at the University of Tennessee. He is the current Southern Sociological Society Distinguished Lecturer. His most recent book projects are co-editor of Social Justice and the University: Globalization, Human Rights, and the Future of Democracy (Palgrave) and co-editor of Globalization and Beyond: New Examinations of Power and Its Alternatives (Penn State University Press). His current project is a comparative examination of austerity policies across the Global North and South.
On Wednesday, March 30th, 2016 at 12:30 pm, Kissam Center, room C216,
Dr. Shefner will deliver a talk entitled “The Seeming Inevitability of Austerity.”
How can we understand the creeping and cumulative way that austerity policies have affected the United States, and how do they differ from austerity in the Global South and in the Eurozone? Policies such as balanced budget constitutional provisions and tax reforms have decreased public resources that could be used to resolve economic need. In the wake of deindustrialization, the policies that local governments have implemented in response to the flight of industry have further diminished economic flexibility. This talk examines how economic policy set the stage for austerity policies to be seen as inevitable, and it draws on other cases to suggest some potential responses.
