The Institutional Barriers to Heterodox Pluralism

Abstract

This paper applies the feminist concept of epistemological communities to the project of promoting pluralism in the economics discipline. It argues that the review process should require that reviewers are part of the same epistemological community. It argues that a political conception of pluralism based on tolerance is more appropriate than methodological pluralism. JEL classification: A11, B40, B50

Strategic Pluralism and Monism in Heterodox Economics

“…Attempts to produce a monistic sparring partner for orthodoxy may detract from the richness of heterodox thought. It remains doubtful that heterodox economics can be boiled down to a single system in the vein of neoclassical theory and to try to do so could be misguided (Dequech 2008; Hopkins 2010; Mearman 2011b). Unity would be troublesome to enforce, and tensions between heterodox schools might increase if they were bound together in a vessel that hampered freedoms to theorize independently.…”