Short Abstract:

This panel proposal wishes to establish a collaboration between the Development Studies Association and the Young Scholars Initiative to forge connections among early career researchers working on institutions and development across different fields of study and through different perspectives.

Long Abstract:

Taking the momentum gained by institutional perspectives from the 2024 Nobel Prize win by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson and acknowledging the need for discourse on economic development to be more meaningfully informed by different social sciences, I propose a partnership with DSA by holding an experimental panel session at the DSA2025 Conference. I am an event organiser for the Economic Development Working Group of the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI), which provides partial travel stipends and accommodation for early career researchers. The proposed YSI panel will take an experimental format given that the main objective is to establish theoretical nexus, empirical extensions, and concrete opportunities for interdisciplinary work in investigating the role of institutions on development. Thus, this panel will welcome papers highlighting how institutions have been theorised and operationalised across social sciences such as political economy and development studies, contextualised within the conference theme of navigating the present polycrisis. As a novelty, each participant will not present their own submission but will instead be in charge of discussing a paper submitted by another Young Scholar. Their discussion must focus on how their own research benefits from and informs the work that has been assigned to them. Young Scholars will then be able to provide clarifications and facilitate a deeper understanding of their own work. Thus, a concrete outcome from this experimental panel would be a network of early career researchers working on closely related topics, which can potentially lead to joint research projects and future collaborations.

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