HSR 43 (2018) 3 Special Issue: Economists, Politics, and Society. New Insights from Mapping Economic Practices Using Field-Analysis (ed. Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg & Frédéric Lebaron)
Economists have become a major “Trägerschicht” (carrier) of governmental knowledge in the 21st century, a development that has not only but also become apparent in the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Since, interest in economists and economic knowledge as well as in the impact of either on politics, economics and society has not withered. This HSR Special Issue joins contributions by researchers that draw on the methodological work of Pierre Bourdieu to analyse these relationships. The approach allows to research developments of longue durée and their impact on current political and social events, using the concepts of field and habitus and focusing on the interlinking of individual trajectories and collective institutional histories. Contributions employ quantitative methods such as geometric data analysis and network analysis as well as qualitative interpretative methods to analyse biographical and textual data from a diverse set of national and transnational contexts.
Research findings that are presented in this special issue fall into four main areas. First, the inner workings of academic economics is scrutinised focusing on issues of professional socialisation, changes in degree programmes and university teaching as well as the proliferation of specific research paradigms. Second, shifts in national fields of academic economists and their relationships to economic and state institutions are researched. Third, the role that economists and economic expertise played and still plays in the European crisis and post-crisis institutional refurbishing of the field of Eurocracy are analysed. Fourth, national elites’ struggles and the relationship between national fields of power and an ever more trans-nationalized academic field of economists are researched.
Abstracts of all contributions are available at <http://www.gesis.org/hsr/>. For orders, please contact hsr-order@gesis.org.
CONTENTS
Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg & Frédéric Lebaron There Is No Such Thing as “the Economy”. Economic Phenomena Analysed from a Field-Theoretical Perspective. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.7-38
Alexander Lenger Socialization in the Academic and Professional Field: Revealing the Homo Oeconomicus Academicus. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.39-62
Emmanuel Monneau Economics Degrees in the French University Space: Heteronomy and Professionalization of Curricula 1970-2009. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.63-93
Arthur Jatteau The Success of Randomized Controlled Trials: A Sociographical Study of the Rise of J-PAL to Scientific Excellence and Influence. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.94-119.
Jens Maesse Globalization Strategies and the Economics Dispositif: Insights from Germany and the UK. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.120-146
Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg Struggling over Crisis. Discoursive Positionings and Academic Positions in the Field of German-Speaking Economists. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.147-188
Thierry Rossier & Felix Bühlmann The Internationalisation of Economics and Business Studies: Import of Excellence, Cosmopolitan Capital, or American Dominance? doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.189-215
Didier Georgakakis & Frédéric Lebaron Yanis (Varoufakis), the Minotaur, and the Field of Eurocracy. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.216-247
Stephanie L. Mudge & Antoine Vauchez Too Embedded to Fail: The ECB and the Necessity of Calculating Europe. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.248-273
Elisa Klüger Mapping the Inflections in the Policies of the Brazilian National Economic and Social Development Bank during the 1990s and 2000s within Social Spaces and Networks. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.274-302
Mariana Heredia The International Division of Labor in Economists’ Field. Academic Subordination in Exchange for Political Prerogatives in Argentina. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.303-328
Christian Schneickert Globalizing Political and Economic Elites in National Fields of Power. doi: 10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.329-358