Let me start
with how I saw things at the end of a couple of days
- Talk of “populism”
surfaces whenever things seem to be slipping from the control of “ruling
elites”
- Such talk has occurred
every 30 years or so in the past 150 years – the 1880s in the US and Russia; the 1930s in Europe and
Latin America; the late 1960s globally; the late 1990s in Europe
- as a professional and intellectual discipline, Political Science has adopted a rather disdainful view of democracy and a “scientist” approach to its methodology - marginalising those few academics with serious interests in notions of the “public good” being embedded in government programmes
- as a professional and intellectual discipline, Political Science has adopted a rather disdainful view of democracy and a “scientist” approach to its methodology - marginalising those few academics with serious interests in notions of the “public good” being embedded in government programmes
- The US tradition of
populism has never died - whereas the European tradition is sceptical at best
(with the exception of the French whose celebration of revolt seems part of
their DNA)
- But the younger
contemporary American academics seem to have lost their sense of history and
have produced rather aggressive celebrations of liberalism (Y Mounk)
The reader
should now be warned that the next few paras represent a rather jaundiced take
on academia…. As a social “scientist”, I have long had a healthy skepticism
about the overconfident claims of particularly economists – and have even been
known (as long ago as 2010) to challenge the political scientists for hiding
their heads in the sand.
Not for nothing is Social Sciences as Sorcery; Stanislaw Andreski
(1972) one of my favourite books – and I was delighted to be able to download it in full yesterday……
2008, of
course, should have been the death knell for economics since it had succumbed
some decades earlier to a highly-simplified and unrealistic model of the economy which was then starkly revealed in all its nakedness…..Steve Keen was
one of the first economists to break ranks very publicly way back in 2001 and
to set out an alternative - Debunking Economics – the
naked emperor dethroned.
This coincided with economics students in Paris objecting to the homogeneity of syllabi and reaching out to others – creating in the next 15 years a movement which has become global
This coincided with economics students in Paris objecting to the homogeneity of syllabi and reaching out to others – creating in the next 15 years a movement which has become global
This is
a good presentation on the issues (from 2012) and I am now reading an
excellent little Penguin book The Econocracy – the perils of leaving economics
to the experts by Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins (2017) from their experience of stirring things up on the Manchester University economics programme. The
book’s sub-title says it all!
Dani
Rodrik is one
of the few economists with a global reputation to support them (Ha-Yoon Chang is
another) and indeed published an important book recently reviewing the state of
economics - Economics Rules – the rights and the
wrongs of the dismal science; (2016)
which was nicely reviewed here
The Financial Times recently reviewed several other such books - so the situation is not beyond repair but we have to be realistic. Academic economists have invested a lifetime’s reputation and energy in offering the courses they do - and neither can nor will easily offer programmes to satisfy future student demands for relevance and pluralism….. chances are that the next cohort will be more pliable...
Academic Political Science may not have quite the same level of pressure to change as in Economics but increasing questions are nonetheless being asked of it about the implications of the populist zeitgeist for the celebration of liberal democracy which masquerades as political science departments of US universities.
So what does all this mean for the present anguishing
over populism?
I graduated in
the 1960s as a “Labour” populist – although I never expressed it quite like that! I was schooled in the writings
of RH Tawney, Ivan Illich, Paolo Freire, Saul Alinsky, Peter Marris and Martin
Ryan; and inspired at various times by such distinctive and competing Labourites
as Nye Bevan, John Strachey, GDH Cole, Hugh Gaitskell; RHS Crossman, Tony
Crosland and John Mackintosh. The result of such a mish-mash was a pragmatic centralist
with an anarchist streak…..I was one of the contributors to the famous 1975 Red Paper on Scotland and had sympathies with the alternative economic strategy and
the Lucas Plan
And, despite
the senior position I had reached in the 80s, I remained committed to ensuring
that that the ordinary, decent citizen’s voice and collective efforts were respected
and encouraged. I may not have been a Bennite but I respected the man.
I left the UK
in late 1990 and therefore never knew New Labour and its insidious contribution
to the current cynicism about politics – Neil Kinnock may have been the Labour
Leader but John Smith was the solid leader-in-waiting…From 1978-1990 the
articles of the maverick Marxism Today journal plotted the
various ideas absorbing the British Left during that critical period. Gordon
Brown even contributed a piece (in late 1989) which indicated
if not populism a strong ideological flavor..
And Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, and always has
been an ideologue – not a populist. But the fascinating 2017
British Labour Party Manifesto also has a strong populist streak…It’s a
pity that so few of the chattering political and economic classes in Britain
have yet been able to produce books which pick up the analysis from the point
we had reached 30 years ago before New Labour seduced and traduced the Labour
tradition….
Populism Resource
https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-populist-explosion/
John Judis (2016)
