This module is not currently running in 2021 to 2022.
This module is situated at the interface of political theory and political economy. It seeks to explore the complex and multi-faceted links between democracy and capitalism in the period from 1848 to the present day. The particular focus is on relations between the state and the market as well as the evolution of different democratic regimes and market economies. Similar emphasis will be on conceptual issues and empirical evidence (though no statistical or econometric skills will be required).
The first part of the module examines the formation of ‘market-states’, beginning with a critical discussion of this concept in recent scholarship. This will be the starting point for a wider engagement with Smithian, Marxist, Keynesian and neo-liberal accounts. The focus will be on those who theorise the conditions for the convergence of state and market, including Smith, Marx, Keynes and Friedman but also some contemporary theorists. Emphasis will be on strategies of resistance and alternatives to capitalism (e.g. Karl Polanyi, Catholic Social Teaching, civil economy).
The second part turns to the evolution of democracy in relation to capitalism. A brief survey of the recent post-democracy literature will be followed by a discussion of key concepts. Examples include the work of the Frankfurt School on capitalism and democracy as ‘‘quasi-religions’’ and various arguments that formal democratic representation and abstract capitalist exchange engender a ‘‘society of spectacle’’. Just as the first part focuses on the state and the market, so the second part puts emphasis on the interaction between the politics of democracy and the economics of capitalism.
100% coursework
Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (London: Verso, 1994)
Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles. War, Peace and the Course of History (London: Penguin, 2003)
Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni, Civil Economy: Efficiency, Equity, Public Happiness (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007)
Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004)
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000 [orig. pub. 1944])
Richard Robison (ed.) The Neo-liberal Revolution: forging the market state (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
Emmanuel Todd, Après la démocratie (Paris : Gallimard, 2008)
Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008)
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
Analyse the relations between the state and the market and also between different democratic regimes and market economies, along with an understanding of the main debates over conceptual distinctions such as left-right, democracy and authoritarianism or state capitalism vs. market capitalism.
Apply core theories and concepts of state and market formation to some key political and socio-economic models in the world from 1848 to the present day, with a focus on examples of market-states and post-democratic regimes.
Deploy conceptual approaches and empirical evidence to assess the explanatory value of different theories, and draw on the results to explain patterns of evolution of different political and socio-economic models.
Explain the main factors that account for the convergence or divergence of states and markets and for the democratization or de-democratization of different political systems.
Critically assess different ideas and practices aimed at reforming or transforming different examples of post-democratic market-states.
Explore the spectrum of possible alternatives to post-democratic market-states both within existing systems and beyond by critically examining other traditions.
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