The development of European unification has reached a critical stage. Despite 75 years of peace, increases in welfare, and growth since World War 2, there is now a growing scepticism of the European agenda from various quarters, most notably embodied in the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. To fully understand the dynamics at work, this book presents an introduction to the development of the political economy of Europe from 1900 to 2020. The first part of the book provides an overview of European economic and political history from 1900 to the present. It is clear from this history that Europe’s population, and most notably its leaders, have been deeply influenced by ideology during this time. This sets the context for the second part of the book, which takes a closer look at some major paradigms framing European dynamics: (1) the market-oriented paradigm, (2) Marx’s paradigm, and (3) the fascist paradigm. In this part, the essential core of each of these paradigms is presented and critiqued. In the third part, the current bottlenecks of European evolution (the migration crisis, Brexit, rise of new Fascism, the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic) are investigated in the light of a possible emergence of a new scientific paradigm. Europe’s role in the global division of labour – its possibility to serve as a role model for the advantages of democratically governing a highly diverse set of populations – is also explained. This book is an ideal text for students undertaking courses on the political economy of Europe in either economics or politics departments.

Standard histories of European integration emphasize the immediate aftermath of World War II as the moment when the seeds of the European Union were first sown. However, the interwar years witnessed a flurry of concern with the reconstruction of the world order, generating arguments that cut across the different social sciences, then plunged in a period of disciplinary soul-searching and feverish activism. Economics was no exception: several of the most prominent interwar economists, such as F. A. Hayek, Jan Tinbergen, Lionel Robbins, François Perroux, J. M. Keynes and Robert Triffin, contributed directly to larger public discussions on peace, order and stability. This edited volume combines these different strands of historical narrative into a unified framework, showing how political economy was integral to the interwar literature on international relations and, conversely, how economists were eager to incorporate international politics into their own concerns. The book brings together a group of scholars with varied disciplinary backgrounds, whose combined perspectives allow us to explore three analytical layers. The first part studies how different forms of economic knowledge, from economic programming to international finance, were used in the quest for a stable European order. The second part focuses on the existence of conflicting expectations about the role of social scientific knowledge, either as a source of technical solutions or as an input for enlightened public discussion. The third part illustrates how certain ideas and beliefs found concrete expression in specific institutional settings, which amplified their political leverage. The three parts are enclosed by an introductory essay, laying out the broad topics explored in the volume, and a substantial postscript tying all the historical threads together.

The mid-eighteenth century witnessed what might be dubbed an economic turn that resolutely changed the trajectory of world history. The discipline of economics itself emerged amidst this turn, and it is frequently traced back to the work of François Quesnay and his school of Physiocracy. Though lionized by the subsequent historiography of economics, the theoretical postulates and policy consequences of Physiocracy were disastrous at the time, resulting in a veritable subsistence trauma in France. This galvanized relentless and diverse critiques of the doctrine not only in France but also throughout the European world that have, hitherto, been largely neglected by scholars. Though Physiocracy was an integral part of the economic turn, it was rapidly overcome, both theoretically and practically, with durable and important consequences for the history of political economy. The Economic Turn brings together some of the leading historians of that moment to fundamentally recast our understanding of the origins and diverse natures of political economy in the Enlightenment.

Dotyczy m. in. Polski.

The European political economy: policy and theory, provides students, researchers and policy makers with a profound understanding of the theory and policy of the EU. The book covers in a comprehensive way the key issue areas of the European Union activity and it includes an analysis of all the important current developments in Europe such as the Brexit, the European Union sovereign debt crisis, the European economic governance problems and the macroeconomic adjustment challenges within Eurozone. The book also includes critical resources for readers and students such as review questions, appendixes, references and further reading lists. More specifically, the textbook explains thoroughly the institutional, economic and policy characteristics of the fundamental issue areas of European economy. It outlines the institutions and mechanisms of European union/Eurozone, the common agricultural, regional and trade policies, the impact of the single market and the single currency on European economy, the enlargement process and the key questions on the European macroeconomic adjustment process. In each chapter the book explains not only what is taking place in European economy but also which the feasible options of the European policy agenda are. The textbook enables readers to apply conceptual and theoretical knowledge to economic and political processes of European integration.

This collection of essays draws on fresh readings of classic texts as well as rigorous research in the archives of Europe's greatest imperial power. Its contributors paint a powerful picture of the nature and implementation of political economy in the long eighteenth century, from the East to the West Indies.