My primary research interests centre theoretically on critical reinterpretations of ideology, subjectivity and power specifically as it relates to broader discourses and everyday practices of capitalism. I am particularly interested in studying how modern desires, linked to ideas of affective fantasy, are shaped at the level of the organization and society generally. More precisely, this involves the ways in which present day firms and leaders establish and reproduce organizational values and prerogatives through shaping experiences of organizational empowerment.  This involves opening the space for employees to rationally pursue goals, experience agency, and even wage resistance ultimately in conformity to established managerial desires and prevailing market values.  Empirically my focus is on emerging organizational behaviour with special within modern day firms and as especially focused on China.

Publications

• Bloom, Peter and Sam Dallyn. (Forthcoming 2011)  "The Paradox of Order: Reimagining Ideological Domination after Deconstruction” Journal of Political Ideologies
• Bloom, Peter. (Forthcoming January 2011). “China’s Shifting Capitalism: The Role of Norms in China’s Market  Transition” Organization
• Bloom, Peter and Carl Cederstrom. (2009) ‘The Sky’s the Limit:  Fantasy in the Age of Market Rationality,’ Journal of Organizational Change Management Vol. 22 No.2
• Bloom, Peter. (2008) “Capitalism’s Cynical Leviathan: Totalitarianism, Cynicism, and Hobbes in Modern Capitalist Regulation” International Journal of Zizek Vol. 2 No. 1

Book Reviews

• Bloom, Peter. (2009) Review of “Governing China’s Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics”, by Susan Greenhalgh, Edwin A. Winckler. In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 4 Issue 1.
• Bloom, Peter. (2009). Review of “Responsibility”, edited by Barbara Darling-Smith. H- Net:  Humanity and Sciences Online (Michigan State University).
• Bloom, Peter. (2009). Review of “Post-Foundational Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau, by Oliver Marchant” H-Net: Humanities and Sciences Online (Michigan State University)

Working Papers/manuscripts

• Bloom, Peter (Revise and Resubmit at Human Relations) “The Fatal Fantasy of Life: ‘Work – Life Balance’ and the Creation of the Modern Subject of Desire”
• Bloom, Peter and Katsanidou, Alexia “Framing Elections: Issue Framing Around Valence and Position and the Paradox of Rational Campaigning” (Under Review at British Journal of Political Science)
• Bloom, Peter. “Back to the Future: The Paradox and Fantasy of Capitalist Ideology Under Crisis” (Submitted as part of special issue proposal to Economy and Society)
• Bloom, Peter (co-written with Carl Rhodes). “The Cultural Fantasy of Hierarchy: Sovereignty and the Desire for Spiritual Purity” (Invitation for submission at Research for Sociology of Organisations)

Organised Conferences

• November 1, 2010: “Representing the Event: Power and Newness in Modernity” to be held at Swansea University.
• June 16 – 18, 2010: Panel “Organisation, Society and Capitalism” at 10th Essex University Political Theory Conference.
• May 6, 2008: Centre for Theoretical Politics, University of Essex. Speaker Mobo Gao "The Battle for China’s Past.” Co-organiser with Professor Steven Smith (Department of History, University of Essex).
• June 21-22, 2007: Eighth Annual Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory   entitled “Multitude, People, Resistance.” Co-organiser with Laura Glanc and Christos Iliades (Department of Government, University of Essex)
• April 30, 2007: Ideology and Discourse Analysis and Critical Management Studies Conference on “Organization, Power, and Change.” Co-organiser with Dr. Steffan Boehm (Department of Accounting, Finance, and Management, University of Essex”

Selected Conferences

• June 12-13 Paper presenter at Ninth Essex Conference in Critical Political Theory. Title of Paper “A Pluralism to Come: Liberalism, the Shaping of Contingency, and the Taming of Difference.”
• May 3, 2008: Paper presenter at 11th Graduate Philosophy Conference at the University of Essex. Title of Paper “The Enjoyable Promise of a Permanent  Revolution of Democratic Perfectability: Championing the Need for a Radical  Politics of Utopianism in a Post-Foundational World.”
• July 11, 2007: Paper presenter at International Critical Management Studies Conference at Manchester University. Title of Paper “The Cynical  Subject of Liberal Power: Hobbes, Cynicism, and Organizational Control in Liberal Societies.”
• April 11, 2007:  United Kingdom Political Science Association Conference 2007. Title of Paper “Issue Framing, Elections, and Ideology: The Paradox of Rational Campaigning and Democratic Constraints on Ideological Change (UK, Netherlands, and Sweden).”
• January 16, 2007: Presented at “Democracy and Capitalism Symposium” held at University of Cardiff. Title of Lecture “Capitalism’s Social Fetish: Capitalist Control and the fantasy of Liberal Rights.”
• December 8, 2006: London in the Time of Terror: A Politics of Response. Title of Paper “Democratic Imperialism: The Spread of US Interests through Democracy.”
• May 13, 2006: Seventh Annual Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory. Title of Paper “Democratic Imperialism: The Spread of US Interests through  Democracy.”
• May 12, 2006: Seventh Annual Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory. Title of Paper “An Obligation to Subordination: Power, Liberalism, and Personal Obligation.”
• March 8, 2006: IDA-Oxford Joint Conference. Title of Paper “Xiaokang and the  Making of the Market Imaginary: Populism and the Construction of the Chinese Capitalist Identity.”