Teaching Political Economy
Workshop, University of Warwick,
21 September 2012.
Monsieur Jourdain’s confession
• I’ve been teaching Political Economy all my life!
• The titles of the ‘political economy’ courses I have
taught over the years:
1. Undergraduate: Business and Politics in Britain
(2006-11) ; Governing the British Economy
(2000-5)
2. MA: Business and Politics under Advanced
Capitalism (2006-11); Governing the European
Economy (2000-6)
Why no ‘political economy’
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Don’t frighten the horses
‘A little bit of theory goes a long way’
The interests of students
The economic priorities of students
The driver of current events
The ‘institutional setting’ of
undergraduate political economy
• ‘Political economy’ at Manchester: the staff
language
• The nature of the social science undergraduate
audience
• The ‘catchment area’ for student recruitment for
BPG
• The cultural reasons: : the shift from ‘special
subjects’ under mass higher education
• The ‘business’ reasons: load transfer incomes and
devolved budgets
The intellectual setting of
undergraduate political economy
• The irrelevance of the Manchester tradition: the
character of modern Manchester economics
• The research setting: The British Regulatory State
(2007) and Business, Politics and Society (2009.)
• The historical setting: the collapse of the Great
Moderation (After the Great Complacence)
• Events and modes of assessment: the student
driven nature of the course after September
2007.
The setting of graduate political
economy
• The commonalities with undergraduates: the
irrelevance of the ‘Manchester tradition’.
• The institutional transformation: the rise of mass
graduate teaching and the economics of universities
• The triple problem: class management; diversity of the
student body; the problem of finding a common
‘political economy’ language
• My solution: an empirical focus; and a heavy reliance
on students’ own experience and background
• The result: a little bit of theory goes a long way.
• Back to Monsieur Jourdain!