Joseph Baines

Dr Joseph Baines

Small Group Project 2020-21

The Role of Commodity Trading Firms in the Global Political Economy

This project assembles an interdisciplinary team of researchers for a one-day workshop on the role of commodity trading firms in the global political economy. Commodity traders are among the most powerful firms in contemporary capitalism, attracting widespread criticism in recent years for business practices that promote environmental destruction, political corruption, and financial instability. Yet despite growing recognition of their clout, the commodity traders remain under-researched.

More information

Research outcomes

Baines, J., & Hager, S. B. (2022).

From passive owners to planet savers? Asset managers, carbon majors and the limits of sustainable finance. Competition & Change, 27(3-4), 449–471.

Areas of interest

Political Economy Global Value Chains Ecology Corporations Food Energy

Cohort

FG6

Biography

Joseph Baines is a Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at King’s College London. Before his appointment at King’s in 2016, he was a Fellow in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Joseph undertook his PhD at York University, Toronto, where he explored the distributional consequences of food crisis and the restructuring of global value chains. Prior to his doctoral research, Joseph completed a Masters in Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex (2007-08), and an undergraduate degree in politics and international studies at the University of Warwick (2004-07).

The underlying research question that animates much of Joseph’s research is ‘who benefits?’ Who, in other words, gains from either stasis or transformation in the global political economy? And what if anything are these actors doing to either obstruct or facilitate change?

Biographical details correct as of 29.04.26