Showing papers by "Ben Clift published in 2019"
TL;DR: This article analyzed important yet contingent transformations in IMF fiscal policy thinki... and found that the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) reputation as a bastion of neo-liberal policy orthodoxy was not justified.
Abstract: Belying the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) reputation as a bastion of neo-liberal policy orthodoxy, this article analyses important yet contingent transformations in IMF fiscal policy thinki...
22 citations
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate the worth of economic patriotism and its particular way of understanding the politics of market-making and the role of the state, for understanding the limits of control.
Abstract: This chapter demonstrates the worth of economic patriotism (EP), and its particular way of understanding the politics of market-making and the role of the state, for understanding the limits of control. EP reflects profound if not self-evident contradictions between international market integration and spatially limited political mandates. This is the root of a profound disjuncture between what kinds of promises these politicians articulate to their citizens about ‘control’ over economy and the much more complex realities of achieving economic governance under twenty-first-century complex economic interdependence. Contemporary politicians have a very naive (mis-)conception of state/market interactions. They presume, or pretend, to their electorates that they can pull all the necessary levers of economic policy to exert control over the national economic future.
3 citations
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: The authors proposes small steps towards social democratic policy thinking beyond the national level, focusing on the confluence of interest in tackling inequality between Bretton Woods institutions and European social democracy, and considers the post-crash re-centring of the IMF and the contours of egalitarian policy space.
Abstract: Methodological nationalism is hard-wired into social democratic thought and practice. The methodological nationalism which characterised the political economy of social democracy as a political movement in the twentieth century is a crucial source of the problems facing social democratic renewal today. This chapter proposes small steps towards social democratic policy thinking beyond the national—focusing on the confluence of interest in tackling inequality between Bretton Woods institutions and European social democracy. It considers the post-crash re-centring of the IMF and the contours of egalitarian policy space. Since the crash, Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF have taken on the inequality (and jobs) agenda in new and interesting ways. Indeed, they are arguably more visible and vocal campaigners on tackling inequality than many social democratic parties.
2 citations