Dr Ngai-Ling Sum

PhD Supervision Interests

Cultural Political Economy, International Political Economy, Regulation Approach, East Asian political economy, BRIC, Cross-border Regions, Pearl River Delta, Corporate Social Responsibility, Cultural Political Economy of Competitiveness, Wal-Martization, and Globalization and Transnationl Politics

Current Teaching

Research Interests

Ngai-Ling Sum's theoretical interests centre on the regulation approach, international political economy, and the challenges of post-structuralism. She is particularly interested in developing a 'cultural political economy' that combines the 'cultural turn' and the study of 'political economy' considered both as a set of methods and as a field of study. She is also the co-director of the Cultural Political Economy Research Centre (for more information on 'cultural political economy' and the centre visit http:www.lancaster.ac.uk/cperc). More recently, she has been working on global governance, transnational business governance, corporate social responsibility and the cultural political economy of competitiveness. Together with Prof. Bob Jessop, she co-ordinates an ESRC seminar series on 'Changing Cultures of Competitiveness' 2007-9 (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/changingcultures/). She was granted the British Academy BARDA Award 2008-2010 on the Changing Cultures of Comeptitiveness: Comapring China and India.Empirically, she studies the 'cultural political economy' of Asia, cross-boder region of 'Pearl River Delta', the newly-industrializing countries before and after the Asian Crisis, and the BRIC imaginay. She participates in two international research projects on 'post-Crisis Asia' funded by the Korean Science Foundation and the EU Framework Six 'Priority 7' Programme on 'Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society'. She is currently on the editorial boards of Pacific Review and Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies. She is also Programme Director of the MA on Globalization and the Information Age: Post-Disciplinary Perspectives and the Co-Director of MA Programmes. Her co-authored book (with Bob Jessop) on Beyond the Regulation Approach won the Gunnar Myrdal Prize for the best book published in 2006 that conforms broadly to the aims of the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy.

Download Ngai-Ling Sum's CV, publications list and detailed research interests in PDF format

Research Grants

2004-7 DEMOLOGOS, EU Framework Six 'Priority 7' Programme on 'Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society' (No. CIT2-CT-2004-505462)

2007-9 ESRC research seminar series on 'Changing Cultures of Competitiveness' (with Universities of Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle and Northumbria) (No. RES-451-26-0439)

2008-2010 British Academy BARDA Award on 'Changing Cultures of Competitiveness: A Cultural Political Economy Approach' - a Comparison of Pearl River Delta (China) and India (No. BARDA-48854)

Additional Information

Publications

Selected Publications:

Sum, N-L. and Jessop, B. (2013) Towards a Cultural Political Economy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (submission March 2013).

Sum, N-L. (2010) 'Wal-Martization and CSR-ization in Developing Countries' in P. Utting and J. C. Marques (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulatory Governance: Towards Inclusive Development?, London: Palgrave and Geneva: UNRISD, 50-76.

Sum, N-L. (2009) 'The Production of Hegemonic Policy Discourses: "Competitiveness" as a Knowledge Brand and its Recontextualizations', Critical Policy Studies, 3 (2): 184-203.

Sum, N-L. (2008) 'Struggles Against Wal-Martization and Neo-liberal Comeptitiveness in (southern) China: Is Post-Neoliberalism an Alternative?' Development Dialogue, 51: 67-81.

Sum, N-L. (2006) Beyond the Regulation Approach: Putting Captialist Economies in their Place (with Bob Jessop), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (Awarded the Gunnar Mydral Prize by the European Association of Evolutionary Political Economics 2007).

Sum, N-L. (2006) 'Towards a Cultural Political Economy: Post-Structuralism and the Italian School' (with Bob Jessop) in M. de Goede (ed.) IPE and Postructural Politics, New York: Palgrave, 157-176.

Sum, N-L. (2005) 'Paradoxes and Ethical Transnation Production: Codes of Conduct in a Chinese Workplace' (co-authored with N. Pun), Competition and Change: Journal of Global Business and Political Economy, 9 (2): 181-200.

• Cultural Political Economy Research Centre

  28/06/2009 → 28/06/2012
  The Cultural Political Economy cluster was established in 2003 and it subsequently developed into a Cultural Political Economy Centre in 2009. The Centre explores and evaluates the challenges posed by ... Read more»

• Research Cluster and International Workshop on Cultural Political Economy

  03/06/2004 → 05/06/2004
  Research Cluster and International Workshop on Cultural Political Economy ... Read more»

• Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society

  01/05/2004 →
  Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society Part of a research team funded by the EU Framework Six Priority 7 Programme on 'Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society' ... Read more»

• International Workshop on Transnational High Tech Strategies in a Globalized World

  19/07/2003 → 20/07/2003
  International Workshop on Transnational High Tech Strategies in a Globalized World ... Read more»

• East Asian Economies: Regulationist Perspectives

  01/01/2000 → 31/12/2006
  East Asian Economies: Regulationist Perspectives ... Read more»

• Developmental State and East Asian Crisis

  01/01/1999 → 31/12/2001
  Developmental State and East Asian Crisis ... Read more»

• Dr Ngai-Ling Sum delivers paper at UN

  13/11/2007
  Dr Ngai-Ling Sum (Politics and International Relations) delivered a paper at an international conference at the United Nations in Geneva on 13th November. The conference was on corporate social respon ... Read more»

• First external research grant for IAS

  01/08/2004
  Professor Bob Jessop and Dr Ngai-Ling Sum have received an award under the EU's Framework 6 Research Programme to work as part of a seven university team on issues of social and economic development a ... Read more»