Enacting Dismal Science: New Perspectives on the Performativity of Economics (Perspectives from Social Economics) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1349958425 ISBN 13: 9781349958429

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Synopsis

In this book, sociologists, philosophers, and economists investigate the conceptual issues around the performativity of economics over a variety of disciplinary contexts and provide new case studies illuminating this phenomenon. In featuring the latest contributions to the performativity debate the book revives discussion of the fundamental questions: What precise meaning can we attribute to the notion of performativity? What empirical evidence can help us recognize economics as performative? And what consequences does performativity have for contemporary societies? The contributions demonstrate how performativity can serve as a powerful conceptual resource in dealing with economic knowledge, as an inspiring framework for investigating performative practices, and as an engine of discovery for thinking of the economic proper.             

About this title

Review:

“This remarkable book brings together philosophical speculation and historical analyses, conceptual work, and in-depth idiography. It provides a spectacular commentary on the ways economic knowledge inhabits and shapes modern capitalism, and on the logics behind its performative effects. A key reading for those who wish to get an idea on how economics gets political; a helpful source for the students of contemporary economic governmentality; and a convincing interdisciplinary endeavor to explore the everlasting tensions between the economic and the social.” (Joseph Vogl, Professor of Modern German Literature, Cultural, and Media Studies, Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany; Permanent Visiting Professor at the Department of German, Princeton University, USA)

“‘Performativity’ has become one of the most widely used and debated concepts in the social sciences. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in this crucial idea.” (Donald MacKenzie, Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK)

“What exactly does ‘performativity’ entail, and what are the implications for questions about agency, novelty, and critique? This volume helps illuminate these questions, drawing on disciplinary contexts and concerns as diverse as institutional theory, corporate governance, anthropology, and ethics. Not just an exemplary contribution, but a persuasive performance of the field it describes.” (Steve Woolgar, Professor of Science and Technology Studies, University of Oxford, UK, and Linkoping University, Sweden)                       

About the Author:

Ivan Boldyrev is Associate Professor at the Higher School of Economics, Russia, and Research Associate at the Witten Institute for Institutional Change at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany. His books include Ernst Bloch and His Contemporaries and Hegel, Institutions and Economics (with Carsten Herrmann-Pillath). He has authored many articles focusing on the intellectual history of economics, philosophy of the social sciences, and German Idealism. Ekaterina Svetlova is a Senior Lecturer of Accounting and Finance at the University of Leicester’s School of Management, UK. Previously, she has been a Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Constance, Germany; Zeppelin University, Germany; and University of Basel, Switzerland. She also worked as a Portfolio Manager and Financial Analyst at a big investment company in Frankfurt, Germany, for six years. Svetlova has published on themes such as economic sociology, social studies of finance, and economic philosophy in journals that include Economy and Society, Culture and Organization, Science in Context, Synthese and International Studies in the Philosophy of Science.            

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1349958425
• ISBN 13: 9781349958429
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 213
• Editor: Boldyrev Ivan, Svetlova Ekaterina