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Jeffrey Sommers

Professor
 Mitchell 215
Faculty and Academic Staff
Curriculum Vitae

Education

PhD, Northeastern University

Research & Teaching Interests

Research and teaching is conducted on the “spatial fixes” to crises of global capital accumulation, with a special focus on the Baltic States. Professor Sommers has researched and critiqued austerity policies in response to the 2008 global economic crisis. Further research centers on the political economy of Africa’s (and its Diaspora) accelerated integration into new networks of accumulation. Other areas investigated are development studies, developmental states, international political economy and hegemonic transitions.

Professor Sommers also maintains a visiting professorship at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. He has held three US State Department Fulbright Awards (and two extensions). Additionally, he has served as an invited specialist for a State Department new Ambassador training in Washington, DC. Furthermore, his counsel has been sought by investors, along with ministerial and government leaders through to the prime minister level. In addition to his academic work, he has been published in outlets such as the Financial Times, The New York Times,  The World Financial Review, The Guardian, The Nation, Social Europe and others.

Selected Publications

Sommers, J. W., Jaitner, F., Olteanu, T., & Spöri, T. Decline of the Demos: Latvia, the Face of New Europe and Austerity’s Return. Crises in the Post-Soviet Space: From the Dissolution of the Soviet Union to the conflict in Ukraine. Routledge Press.
Sommers, J. W., & Paik, P. (2018, June). A Blow to Interventionists, as US and North Korea Move Toward Peace. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W., & Fons, C. (2018, May). Fear and Loathing of a Blue Wave in Wisconsin: Scott Walker Reprises in Class Warfare Against Schools and Teachers. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W. (2018, February). Bond Villain in the World Economy: Latvia’s Offshore Banking Sector. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W., & Beldavs, V. (2017, December). The emerging field of space economics: theoretical and practical considerations.
Sommers, J. W. (2017, November). L’austérité lettone: le visage de la Nouvelle Europe. Perspectives Libres, Nov(21), 193-217.
Sommers, J. W. (2017, February). Donald Trump and Steve Bannon’s Russia Policy Explained: Bend or Break, Expect Change. World Financial Review, 56-59.
Sommers, J. W. (2017, January (1st Quarter/Winter)). This is How the New Colder War Turns Hot.
Sommers, J. W. (2016, November). The Election: Failing Real Change, Hope Lost. World Financial Review.
Sommers, J. W., & Koltashov, V. (2016, January (1st Quarter/Winter)). Russia, the United States and Ukraine in the Long Economic Crisis: Assessments and Prospects for the Developmental State. International Critical Thought, 6(4), 589-602.
Sommers, J. W., Ferguson, K., & Petro, P. (2016). Social Democracy and its Discontents: The Rise of Austerity. After Capitalism: Horizons of Finance, Culture, and Citizenship, 91-132. Rutgers University Press.
Sommers, J. W., , & (2015, December). Race, Reality & Realpolitik: US/Haiti Relations in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. , 200. Lexington Press.
Sommers, J. W. (2015, November). The U.S. Power Elite and the Political Economy of Haiti’s Occupation: Investment, Race & World Order. L’Occupation 1915-1934: Perspectives on Haiti and the US at the Centennial, special issue of the Journal of Haitian Studies, 21(2), pp. 46-67.
, & Sommers, J. W. (2015, June). Austerity and the Demise of Social Europe: The Baltic Model versus the Social Model. Woolfson, C. (Ed.). Globalizations.
Sommers, J. W. (2015, February). Lethal Arms Are Not What Ukraine Needs. The New York Times.
Sommers, J. W., Saint Jacques, E., & Bellegarde-Smith, P. D., eds. (2015, October (4th Quarter/Autumn)). L’Occupation 1915-1934: Perspectives on Haiti and the US at the Centennial. Journal of Haitian Studies.
Sommers, J. W. (2014, December). The budget ‘tool’ Gov. Scott Walker should not use.
Sommers, J. W., woolfson, c., & juuska, a. (2014, September). Keynote Article, “Austerity as a global prescription and lessons from the neoliberal Baltic experiment.”. Economic & Labour Relations Review, 25:3, 1-20.
Sommers, J. W. (2014, May). The Contradictions of Austerity: The Socio-Economic Costs of the Neoliberal Baltic Model. Sommers, J. W., & Charles, W. (Eds.). , 182. London: Routledge Press.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2014, February). Russia’s Economic Development to Offset Terrorist Fervor. TruthDig.
Sommers, J. W., & Varoufakis, Y. (2014, February). Don’t Try this at Home!: Greek Austerity.
Galbraith, J. (2014). Austerity, internal devaluation, and social (in)security in Latvia. Sommers, J. W., & Woolfson, C. (Eds.). The Contradictions of Austerity: The Socio-Economic Costs of the Baltic Model. London: Routledge Press.
Sommers, J. W., Woolfson, C., & Juskaa, A. (2014, October (4th Quarter/Autumn)). Austerity as a global prescription and lessons from the neoliberal Baltic experiment. Economic & Labour Relations Review, 25(3), pp.1-20.
Sommers, J. W. (2013, May). Latvians voted on ethnic lines, and with their feet. Financial Times, 9.
Sommers, J. W. (2013, March). Необходимость нового экономического и экологического порядка. The Need for a New Economic and Ecological Order. Grinberg, R. (Ed.). Мир перемен Global Change, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1, 110-115.
Sommers, J. W., Beldavs, V., & Anderson, G. (2013, March). Space industrialization and the G20.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2013, January (1st Quarter/Winter)). Latvia’s Economic Disaster as Success Story: A Model for Europe? Truthout.
Sommers, J. W. (2013, April (2nd Quarter/Spring)). America’s CEO, SCott Walker: CPAC and the Rebranding of America as a Company Town. Truthout.
Sommers, J. W., Beldavs, V., & Anderson, G. (2013, April (2nd Quarter/Spring)). Move over NASA and make room for the TVA of Space: a model for accelerated commercial space development.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2013, April (2nd Quarter/Spring)). Thatcher: The Queen Mother of Global Austerity and Financialization. Truthout.
Sommers, J. W., & Beldavs, V. (2012, November). Back to the future: Space and escaping the gravitational pull of economic crisis.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2012, June). Latvia’s Fake Economic Model: Austerity’s Potemkin Villages in the Baltic. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W. (2012, June). Latvia is no Model for Austerity. The Financial Times.
Sommers, J. W. (2012, April (2nd Quarter/Spring)). No Exit in EU. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W., Juska, A., & Hudson, M. (2011, December). ‘No People, No Problem’: The Baltic Tigers’ False Prophets of Austerity. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2011, September). Latvia and the disciples of ‘internal devaluation’. The Guardian.
Sommers, J. W., & Rimsevics, I. (2011, August). Latvijas Krizes (Latvia’s Crisis).
Sommers, J. W., & Kagarlitsky, Boris (2011, June). Tides of Hegemonic Change: the Atypical Trajectory of the 1970s to Present B Phase Crisis. Manning, P., & Gills, B. (Eds.). Political Economy on a World Scale: Essays in Memory of Andre Gunder Frank, 239-64. Routledge Press.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2011, March). Scott Walker’s agenda in Wisconsin. The Guardian.
Sommers, J. W. (2011, February). Class war in Wisconsin. The Guardian.
Sommers, J. W. (2011, April (2nd Quarter/Spring)). Report on Wisconsin: Bob LaFollette’s Resurrection. International Union Rights, The International Centre for Trade Union Rights, 18(1), 18-9, cont. 13.
Sommers, J. W., & Berzins, J. (2011). Twenty Years Lost: Entropy and Latvia in the Post Soviet World. Dale, G. (Ed.). First the Transition, then the Crash: Eastern Europe in the 2000s, 119-42. London: Pluto.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2011, January (1st Quarter/Winter)). The Myth of the Baltic Tigers: The Death of ‘Social Europe’. CounterPunch.
Sommers, J. W., & (2010, December). Latvia provides no magic solution for indebted economies.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2010). How the Neoliberals Bankrupted ‘New Europe’: Latvia in the Global Credit Crisis. Konings, M. (Ed.). The Great Credit Crash, 244-63. London: Verso Press.
Sommers, J. W., & Hudson, M. (2010). Latvia and the Turn Away from the Classical Economic Tradition. Strazds, A. (Ed.). Latvia Renewed, pp. 1-30. Riga: Concord Centre.
Sommers, J. W., Hudson, M., & Bezmer, D. (2010). Ponzi from the Start: The Human Cost of Financial Instability in Latvia. Minsky, Crisis, and Development, 245-256. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woolfson, C., Thornqvist, C., & Sommers, J. W. (2010, October (4th Quarter/Autumn)). The Swedish model and the future of labor standards after Laval. Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley-Blackwell, 41(4), 333–350.

Other Resources:

Jeffrey Sommers’ Select Media Articles and Appearances

MPTV’s International Focus, May 13, 2014
The New York Times, February 24, 2014
Financial Times, June 21, 2012
The Guardian, September 16, 2011
CounterPunch, January 18, 2011