MaxPo − A Franco-German Research Center

From 2012 to 2022, MaxPo promoted scholarly exchange and cooperation between Sciences Po in Paris and the MPIfG in Cologne. It has contributed to raising the visibility and profile of European social sciences and building stronger connections between excellent social scientists at all levels.

Launched in 2012 and funded throughout by the Max Planck Society and the AXA Research Fund, MaxPo’s research agenda was to study how individuals, organizations, and political systems attempt to cope with the high degree of strategic uncertainty in market societies. The Center set out to promote and enrich academic dialogue and cooperation in political economy and economic sociology between Sciences Po and the MPIfG and to produce excellent research. Another important element of MaxPo’s mission was to raise the visibility and profile of the European social sciences and to build strong networks between social scientists at all levels, from doctoral students to renowned professors, worldwide.

A conference which took place in Paris on October 21, 2022, marked both the anniversary and the conclusion of the joint research endeavour that brought together the Max Planck Society and its Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne with Sciences Po in Paris and reflected the insights gathered on each of these topics over the last ten years.

At the conference, twenty scholars presented and discussed MaxPo’s work and its outcomes. They focused on new classification systems, the concentration of economic power and changing relations between firms and governments, the role of financialization in social inequality, and projections of the future. The conference themes reflect those of the research groups led by MaxPo’s co-directors – Marion Fourcade, Cornelia Woll, Olivier Godechot, and Jenny Andersson – during their time at the Center.