Review of Political Economy

History of Heterodox Economics Programs

Recent changes in the landscape of higher education have meant that several economics departments formerly known for their traditions in heterodox economic thought are in decline. Given these changes, it is important to document the origins, development, growth, and dismantlement of heterodox economics programs globally. Lee (2002; 2009) offers some history of heterodox communities in the US and UK, but other scholars have already accomplished histories of specific programs. For example, Bouchikhi and Kimberly (2017) published on the struggle for the soul of economics at Notre Dame, documenting the dismantling of the heterodox department. Mata (2009) documents tenure denials from Harvard and Yale that pushed radical economists to departments like UMass Amherst, The New School for Social Research, University of California Riverside, and Stanford. However, there is limited research documenting the rise (or fall) of heterodox economics departments at other institutions, especially those outside the United States.

In this special issue, we offer a collection of studies which provide histories of various economics departments and their heterodox traditions. We imagine papers that draw from archives and oral histories to explain how a program began, the key players and challenges, how a program was sustained, and what brought its demise if applicable. Authors undertaking collection of oral histories have the option to archive them in our collection with the Oral Histories in Economics Project at the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne: this comes with support for permissions collection as well as transcription services.

We are excited to see, though not limited to, papers which offer histories of heterodox economics departments at any of the following universities:

University of Utah
University of Denver
University of California Riverside
Jawaharlal Nehru University
The New School for Social Research
The Levy Institute
Colorado State University
UMass Boston
UMass Amherst
University of Missouri Kansas City
University of Campinas
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Bucknell College
California State University San Bernardino
St John’s University
University of Tulsa
John Jay College
University of Southern Maine
University of Bremen
American University
University of Manitoba
University of Delhi
Ambedkar University Delhi
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Laurentian University
Jadavpur University
University of Hyderabad
Azim Premji University
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
University of Witwatersrand
Denison University
State University New York, Cortland
Ithaca College
University of Roma Tre
University of Siena
King’s College London
University of West Indies
University of Bayreuth
Trinity College
Institute of Social Studies, the Netherlands
University of Sydney
Jindal Global University

References

Bouchikhi, H., & Kimberly, J. R. (2017). Paradigmatic warfare: the struggle for the soul of economics at the University of Notre Dame. Industrial and Corporate Change, 26(6), 1109-1124.

Lee, F. (2002). Mutual aid and the making of heterodox economics in postwar America: a Post Keynesian view. History of Economics Review, 35(1), 45-63.

Lee, F. (2009). A history of heterodox economics: Challenging the mainstream in the twentieth century. Routledge.

Mata, T. (2009). Migrations and boundary work: Harvard, radical economists, and the committee on political discrimination. Science in context, 22(1), 115-143.