Economic Common Sense and the Depoliticization of the Economic

Abstract

This article theorizes and begins to explore the extent to which academic and nonacademic discourses contribute to the reproduction and legitimacy of the economic status quo. The author argues that economic practices in the United States are often depoliticized in at least two different ways: They are naturalized or essentialized conceptually, and political control over them is limited. Drawing on antiessentialist Marxian economic theory, Gramsci's theory of hegemony, and poststructuralist theory, the author constructs a framework for conceptualizing economic practices in a more politicized manner. The author also provides some specific examples of depoliticized discourses and a few examples of more politicized discourses.

Encouraging Action in the Private Sphere: Demand‐Side Practices in the Depoliticization of Economic Policy in Israel

“…Discursively, the demand‐side perspective suggests that while the agency of policy makers (usually, politicians) is denied, private or individual agency is emphasized and encouraged through the use of various neoliberal concepts (Swanson ; see Table ). Consequently, depoliticization should not be seen as a set of practices that seek to depress human agency (see Hay ; Jenkins ), but as a reformulation of human agency.…”

Rethinking depoliticisation: beyond the governmental

“…The first and possibly most obvious pool is that concerned with the ideological content of political discourse, and with the use of technical or managerialist language and terminology to obscure or deny the subjectivity and contestability of political debates or decisions (Jenkins, 2011). In recent years, qualitative analyses in this vein have burgeoned as the ideological underpinnings of 'common sense' narratives have been studied, focusing on, for example, free market economic values in the United States (Swanson, 2007), immigration policy in Australia (Pickering, 2001), economic reform in New Zealand (Gregory, 2006), debates concerning unemployment in the European Union (Wodak, 2011;Muntigl, 2002), national responses to globalisation (Watson and Hay, 2004), environmental governance (Swyngedouw, 2011), and even the reform of air traffic management (Oosterlynck and Swyngedouw, 2010). More broadly Wodak's (2011) analysis of the practice of 'politics as usual' in the everyday life of politicians in the European Parliament provides some insight, not into institutions or procedures per se, but into the ways in which the behaviour of politicians is conditioned by certain modes of thought that serve to subconsciously depoliticise certain issues.…”

European Integration and the Politics of Economic Ideas: Economics, Economists and Market Contestation in the Brexit Debate

“…This has been accomplished in the general context of a broader discursive environment in which, as just suggested, the contest among economic alternatives has been reduced to questions of the ‘correct’ technical configuration of policy settings rather than a debate rooted in fundamental disagreement over issues of distribution. How this has been accomplished is a long story, told very well elsewhere, but it would be fair to say that – in most accounts – the field of professional Economics is a far from innocent bystander in the naturalization (and thus removal from the political) of key economic tenets (Hay, ; Swanson, ; Fourcade, ; Quiggin, ; Mirowski, ; Watson, ; Fawcett et al ., ; Stahl, ).…”