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History of Economic Thought and Ideology

Module Code: EC416C

Module Title: History of Economic Thought and Ideology

• ECTS Weighting: 10
• Semester/Term Taught: Hilary Term
• Contact Hours: 22 hours of lectures and approximately 4 hours of seminars.
• Module Personnel: Lecturer - Professor Marvin Suesse

Module Content

Hilary Term:
This part of the module concentrates on how abstract economic thought has been transformed into economic ideologies, and how these ideologies have been applied in the 20th century.
Topics discussed during Hilary Term include:

• The cooperative movement prior to WWII;
• Marxism in the USSR and in China;
• Fascism and corporatism in Germany and Italy;
• Social democracy and the welfare state in Europe;
• Nationalism and Socialism in post-colonial Africa;
• Protectionism and the Washington Consensus in Latin America and East Asia;
• Reaganomics in the United States and Great Britain;
• Islamic economic thought and finance.

Module Learning Aims

This module aims to:

• provide students with an understanding of the fundamental ideas on which modern economic theory and methodology are based;
• provide insight into the historical and ideological context in which different economic systems and policies arose;
• provide students interested in interdisciplinary work with a bridge between subjects as diverse as economics, political science, sociology, history, and philosophy;
• provide students with the skills to write and argue coherently and persuasively; and
• provide students with the intellectual foundations on which an undergraduate dissertation can be written.

Module Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this part of the module, students will be able to:

• understand how some economic theories have been transformed into economic ideologies;
• evaluate the historical context in which economic ideologies arose and were applied;
• engage in the academic debate surrounding the impact of such ideologies on economic policies in the 20th century.

Recommended Reading List

Hilary Term:
There is no single textbook suitable for the whole term. A starting point is provided by:

Lawrence H. White, The clash of economic ideas: policy debates and experiments of the last hundred years, 2012, CUP

Module Pre Requisite

This course is open to a multi-disciplinary audience. However, students should have completed one module in intermediate Economics (equivalent to EC2010) successfully. Exceptions to this rule are to be discussed with the Lecturer.

Assessment Details

Single-term students will hand in two written essays based on their reading of the literature for this term, accounting each for 50% of the overall grade.

Module Website

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