Project description
Exploring the political engagement of mid-20th century European economists
EU-funded ENGECON studies the engagement of economists in the communist, socialist, and labour lefts in France, the United Kingdom and Italy, between the 1930s and the 1960s. It uses an innovative transnational-comparative and prosopographical approach to study the relationship between political engagement and economic ideas. By engagement, it means partisan activism linked to the participation in public debates that contribute to the legitimisation, dissemination and elaboration of economic ideas. The project examines the factors explaining engagement, its practices, and its implications. The analysis of engagement is essential to understand a period characterised by an unprecedented role of economists in a labour movement on the ascent, the rise of the heterodox economics, and the zenith of the managed economy.
Objective
Abstract: ENGECON will study by a transnational-comparative prosopographical approach the engagement of economists in the communist, socialist and labour lefts over three Western European major countries (France, United Kingdom and Italy), from the 1930s to the 1960s. By engagement, ENGECON means a partisan activism linked to the participation in public debate that contributes to the legitimization, dissemination as well as the elaboration of economic ideas. It studies three principal specific objectives: the factors explaining engagement; the practices of engagement; the implications of engagement for the economic thought, as well as the professional trajectory and the intellectual status of the engaged economists. It assumes that the analysis of engagement is essential to understand the role of economists in society. An unprecedented role of economists in a labour movement on the ascent, the rise of the heterodox economics and the apogee of the managed economy characterise this period.
Host organisation: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinator
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom