scholarly journals A Behavioral Approach to the Political and Economic Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Boettke
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Inquiry ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Political Culture in the Lands of the Former Habsburg Empire: Authoritarian and Parliamentary Traditions

1998 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-248
Author(s):  
George Barany
Keyword(s):  
Political Psychology ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political System ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Fundamental Values

Historians and political scientists have already begun to explore different aspects of modern Austria's political culture. But as Helmut Konrad has reminded us, this relatively new concept is loosely defined; he considers “political culture” to mean “the values held by individuals, groups, and society as a whole that affect the behavior of peoplewithin and in relation to the political system of a country.” Lucian Pye stresses the behavioral approach in political analysis to make “more explicit and systematic” our understanding of “such long-standingconcepts as political ideology, national ethos and spirit, national political psychology, and the fundamental values of a people.”

scholarly journals Virtue, Production, and the Politics of Commerce: Genovesi’s “Civil Economy” Revisited

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-729
Author(s):  
Adrian Pabst ◽  
Roberto Scazzieri
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Civil Economy ◽  
Specific Stage ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Antonio Genovesi’s economic-political treatise on civil economy was a major contribution to debates in the mid-and late eighteenth century on the nature of political economy. At that time, Genovesi’s book was extensively translated and discussed across continental Europe and Latin America, where it was read as a foundational text of political economy similar to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the mutual implication between the economic and the political order of society by revisiting Genovesi’s theory of civil economy, which he defined as “the political science of the economy and commerce.” First, the article retraces Genovesi’s conception of civil economy as a branch of political science and the role of “virtue” in ordering the polity according to “the nature of the world.” Second, it explores Genovesi’s theory of production as an inquiry into the proportionality conditions that productive activities should meet for a well-functioning polity to persist over time. Third, our argument emphasizes the importance of Genovesi’s analysis of production structures for his theory of internal and foreign trade. In this connection, the paper investigates Genovesi’s idea that the maintenance of a country’s “trading fund” should be the fundamental objective for its internal and external trade policies. These policies, according to Genovesi, should be consistent with the context of the body politic under consideration and the economy’s proportionality requirements for any specific stage of development.

scholarly journals JOURNALISM AND FACT-CHECKING: typification of sources used for checking and criteria for selecting fact-checked material – an analysis by Agência Lupa and Aos Fatos

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-393
Author(s):  
Daniel De Rezende Damasceno ◽  
Edgard Patrício
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Redes Sociales ◽  
False Information ◽  
Fact Checking ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
Official Sources

Fact-checking was initially used to verify the factuality of information given by political agents. However, the proliferation of false information on social networks and concerns about the political use of spreading lies have led to fact-checking methodologies also being used to combat fake news. In terms of a cognitive and behavioral approach, Lazer et al. (2018) suggest there are some doubts as to how effective this methodology is. This article analyzes the performance of two Brazilian checking agencies, Aos Fatos and Agência Lupa. We demonstrate that, although checking discourse is directly related to the credibility of organizations, the agencies themselves do not lay out the criteria for selecting what is to be checked. The platforms that use this form of fact-checking mainly rely on data and studies provided by official sources and public institutions, once again compromising the credibility of the process.A prática de fact-checking foi iniciada para verificar a factualidade das informações nos discursos de agentes políticos. Mas a proliferação de informações falsas nas redes sociais da internet, e a preocupação com a disseminação de mentiras como instrumento político, fez com que as metodologias de fact-checking também fossem utilizadas para combater fake news. Levando em consideração uma abordagem cognitiva e comportamental, Lazer et al. (2018) alertam que existem dúvidas quanto à eficácia dessa utilização. Esse artigo analisa a atuação de duas agências brasileiras de checagem, Aos Fatos e Agência Lupa. Demonstramos que, apesar da checagem de discursos ter relação direta com a credibilidade das organizações, as próprias agências não explicitam os critérios que orientam a seleção do que é checado. E que nessa modalidade de checagem, as plataformas de fact-checking se valem, sobretudo, de dados e estudos fornecidos por fontes oficiais e instituições públicas, comprometendo mais uma vez a credibilidade do processo.La práctica de fact-checking inició para verificar la factualidad de las informaciones en los discursos de agentes políticos. Pero la proliferación de informaciones falsas en las redes sociales de internet, y la preocupación por la diseminación de mentiras como instrumento político, hizo que las metodologías de fact-checking también fueran utilizadas para combatir las fake news. Teniendo en cuenta un enfoque cognitivo y conductual, Lazer et al. (2018) advierten que existen dudas sobre la eficacia de esta utilización. Este artículo analiza la actuación de dos agencias brasileñas de chequeo, Aos Fatos y Agência Lupa. Demostramos que, aunque la verificación del discurso tiene una relación directa con la credibilidad de las organizaciones, las agencias mismas no detallan los criterios que guían la selección de lo que se verifica. Y que en este modo de verificación, las plataformas de verificación de hechos se basan principalmente en datos y estudios proporcionados por fuentes oficiales e instituciones públicas, comprometiendo una vez más la credibilidad del proceso.

Fisher and Veblen: Two Paths for American Economics

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Dimand
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Journal Editor ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Capital Theory ◽  
Thorstein Veblen ◽  
Hyman Minsky ◽  
Economics Profession ◽  
Economic Inquiry

In the early years of the twentieth century, two outspoken and brilliant American economists, Thorstein Veblen and Irving Fisher, offered sharply-contrasting visions of how the discipline of economics should be transformed. Each taught at a leading university and had added prominence as a journal editor, but pursued economic inquiry in ways alien to senior colleagues at his university and in the profession at large. Despite the gulf separating their approaches to economics, they had been doctoral students of the same mentor, William Graham Sumner of Yale, and had each been deeply influenced by Sumner. This paper uses the exchange on neoclassical capital theory between Veblen and Fisher in the Political Science Quarterly in 1908 and 1909 to illuminate their approaches to economics and to question why the American economics profession came to follow Fisher's path–even though Veblen, unlike Fisher, attracted devoted disciples and was considered in American social thought (excepting academic economists) as the standard-bearer of “the New Economics.” Despite Veblen's antipathy to those aspects of Fisher's work that became dominant in mainstream economics, there was a close affinity between Veblen's Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) and Fisher's debt-deflation theory of depressions, which remained (until very recently) outside the mainstream and has been taken up by such heterodox economists as Hyman Minsky.

scholarly journals Attitudes to Credit in Britain, 1680–1790

1990 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Hoppit
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Vast Range

The history of economic ideas in Britain is dominated by a great tradition which in its early stages focuses on Adam Smith. For the century before the publication of the Wealth of nations in 1776, economic ideas are most often studied in relation to the ‘arrival’ of Smith and commented on with regard to the degree to which they may be considered precursors of his ideas. Though this imposes a sense of order and establishes some principles with which to select from the vast range of economic writings, the dangers of certain whiggishness in this approach are readily apparent. Writers can appear to be winners or losers depending on the extent to which their ideas were denied, adapted or adopted by Smith and the other classical economists.1 Such problems have been acknowledged by many historians, not least by those who have fruitfully examined the political and philosophical bases of the emergence of political economy, particularly with regard to the Scottish enlightenment. Despite this, the force of the great tradition remains very strong. The authors and ideas that are examined are the ‘major’ ones, that is to say contributions that were, or attempted to be, either comprehensive or clearly attached to what, with hindsight, were the main strands of development. The emphasis has been upon theories or systematic explanations of the economic order. Not surprisingly the unsystematic and more casually formulated reflections of non-economists and ‘amateurs’, such as Defoe, are often swept under the carpet, even if their ideas on economic matters were more widely disseminated (and perhaps more influential) at the time. Consequently, our perception of economic ideas between the Restoration and the Wealth of nations continues to be highly and perhaps atypically selective.

Adam Smith's Advisory Style as Illustrated by his Trade Policy Prescriptions

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Endres
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Extensive Reference ◽  
Policy Discussion

The purpose of this paper is to recover Adam Smith's conception of the appropriate rules of argumentation for the political economist in public policy discussion. Our interest will be in Smith's attempt to model the advisory style which he thought appropriate for an economist writing on public policy issues, advising the legislature and debating constitutional problems. Inferences will be drawn from the scope and tone of Smith's work on some selected issues of economic policy reform discussed in The Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN). Extensive reference will be made to Smith's admission of the vital role of rhetoric in human affairs in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, and to Smith's view of the legislator's perspective on policy as enunciated in the Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document