User talk:Msrasnw/Matthew Watson

Previous history
This article was previously deleted due to lack of notability. Discussion here: [Articles for deletion/Matthew Watson Discussion]. I plan to resurect it on the grounds that I think the subject is notable but it might be tricky to prove to the satisfaction of everyone. (Msrasnw (talk) 14:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC))

Previous deletion
Arguments in support of the deletion of this article were based on
 * does not seem to pass WP:PROF - lack of citations - "Two articles and a book is not notability".
 * "Few Assistant professors are notable"

I think these arguments were mis-leading or wrong.


 * He has two single authored books, jointly edited another (with another forthcoming) and had more than thirty articles published in peer reviewed academic journals and these have been widely cited
 * He is a full professor

Support, even proposal, for deletion might well have been based on inaccurate information and deletion itself based partly on this. (Msrasnw (talk) 10:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC))

I agree. Wikipedia editors have little factual knowledge of specific issues like IPE for example and based theri deletion or theri simplified normsFoxhound66 (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Information from citations
Below is some information from citations of Watson Political Economy, 4:1, 55–76.
 * Watson M. (1999) ‘Rethinking capital mobility, re-regulating financial markets’, New

THese can be rewritten to prove that he via his work is notable. THis can be repeated for his other areas.

THis would seem to me to be massively disproportionate. The article is already in my view too big but this seems to be what might be needed.

i) New Labour and the politics of depoliticisation Peter Burnham British Journal of Politics & International Relations Volume 3 Issue 2, Pages 127 - 149 Published Online: 12 Feb 2002

"The term ‘reregulation’ is preferred to ‘deregulation’ since, as Phil Cerny points out, in the last 20 years we have seen a complex process of the drafting of new regulations (often new market-oriented rules) rather than a simple lifting of regulations (see Cerny’s contributions to Cerny, 1993). A rather more sceptical case is advanced by Watson 1999."

ii) Financialisation and the coupon pool Financeirização e a aposta em dividendos Julie Froud; Colin Haslam; Sukhdev Johal; Karel Williams

"The existence of an enriched group has emerging consequences for national identity, social cohesion and patterns of demand. For the time being, in a world of globalisation our stock markets are still, rather curiously, organised on a national basis: US financial institutions are diversifying slowly from a position where in the early 1990s they held 94% of their stock market wealth in US stocks (WATSON, 1999)"

iii) Cambridge Journal of Economics 2004, 28, 809–827 doi:10.1093/cje/beh043 The Asian crisis and the shaping of ‘proper’ economies Jakob Vestergaard*

"Matthew Watson recently discussed what he termed the ‘crowding out’ of productive interests by financial interests. Although in theory financial markets should serve the purpose of reconciling the monetary and investment subsystems of the economy, the increasing sophistication and globalisation of financial markets during the ‘liberalisationof-capital’ period seem, in practice, to have run counter to this ideal or supposed trend.At the same time as there has been a surge in activity in international financial markets, thisactivity has become increasingly disembedded from the real economy . . . Capital holdings havebeen switched from productive to financial assets. Consequently, an ever smaller proportion ofmoney assets has been prepared for non-financial, or GDP, purposes. Productive interests have been crowded out by financial interest. (Watson, 1999, pp. 60–1)

Cites for Watson, M., 2005. Foundations to international political economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

i) Developing geographies of financialisation: banking the poor and remittance securitisation - Hudson, David Source: Contemporary Politics, Volume 14, Number 3, September 2008, pp. 315-333(19) Matthew Watson (2005, pp. 235–8, see also Williams 1999) shows how the economic rationality – that of a narrow cost-benefit calculus – which is assumed to be natural is in fact carefully and systematically taught/imposed. One summarising section (2005, 237, emphasis in original) is worth quoting at length: the development programmes of international institutions are predicated on an attempt to turn local people into the utility-maximising agents of neoclassical theory. They [the programmes] represent a conscious effort to make local people think of themselves first and foremost as individuals – not as people who make a contribution on behalf of society to the economy, but as people who act on their own behalf to take rewards from the economy.

--- One would be the standard arguments about the ‘double movement’ taken from Polanyi’s (1944) Great Transformation. The other, and more interesting here, although also present in the Great Transformation, but more prevalent in his other work (1957), would be the more micro consequences, well summed-up by Watson (2005): ‘no thought is given to the possibility that the economy will prove to be a malfunctioning and even contradictory entity, in the event that its underlying modus operandi is incapable of being embedded within the existing cultural traditions of society’ (2005, p. 235). The consequence of the mis-match between market imperatives and social dynamics is ultimately failure (p. 239).

--

ii) Structural Alignment: Changing Orders in North and South Paper presented at the 50th ISA Annual Convention, Feb 15, 2009, New York. Christian May

"For this reason, we do not aim to refute these accounts but to add another structural layer by turning to (macro-) sociology. As a social science, political science and IR must be compatible with sociology, especially if one focuses on the mechanisms of ideology. Our theoretical perspective feeds firstly from a sociological account of economic order. Capitalism is not just a way of producing and distributing goods and services, but heavily determines how people run their (also non-economic) lives. This question was already pivotal for Marx and Weber, but also for Polanyi, Adorno and feminist scholars (such as Whitworth, 2006). Going beyond a reification of the state-versus-markets-approach (Watson, 2005, 19), it views capitalism as a societal structure. It follows that it cannot be analyzed by focusing on economic transactions only but needs to incorporate a wider variety of social dynamics."

From Abductive's talk page
I am trying to get User:Msrasnw/Matthew Watson‎ undeleted. Do you still believe he is none notable or the article is failing and have you any suggestions to make as to which areas you feel the article might be improved. I feel the article was deleted partly on the basis of incorrect information in the deletion arguments - he only has a book and couple of articles - not a full professor. Best wishes, (Msrasnw (talk) 19:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC))
 * I'm not sure. It seems that he was promoted to full professor in the last few months. But the published output seems about the same. This debate about Is and Ps and Es seems very in-house; perhaps if it could be shown to be of interest to people outside the field (even to other economists). The claim that he is a leading figure on a steering committee is sourced to a blog, and I think he would need to be the chair for it to be meaningful. I'd like to see third party sources using words like "influential", "leading" "important contribution" or "prominent" to describe him or his work. To me, a lot of what the article says looks like the typical work of academics; recasting Adam Smith's legacy, for example. When I Google Scholar search for +wealth +moral +"Adam Smith" I get thousands of articles, page after page of which have double-digit citations, but when I add "Matthew Watson" his highest citation is 4. I think this means that his contribution is not important. Finally, you should ask DGG if his concerns have been met. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:10, 21 November 2009 (UTC)