Political Economy

G09 - Battles of ideas and policies in historical political economy

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Alexandra Mallet (Carleton University)

The National Policy of 1879 Revisited - An Ideational Institutionalist Account: Robert Marshall (Toronto Metropolitan University)
Abstract: In the historiography of the National Policy of 1879 various perspectives, ranging from the orthodox to the heterodox, have explored various aspects of it. Their focus has largely been on addressing its impacts in terms of federalism or unequal economic development. What has largely been absent has been any sort of discussion on how ideas shaped the policy’s development. Since that time newer theoretical approaches have been established, the results of which provide an opportunity to revisit the National Policy and reevaluate its formulation. This paper explores the political impact of economic ideas by availing itself of an ideational institutionalist approach to consider how the National Policy may have been shaped by ideas in political economy. The National Policy was an explicit project designed to consolidate a Canadian economy on an east-west axis for the purposes of both capital accumulation and nation building. The paper starts with a theoretical overview which explores the political power of economic ideas. A description of the National Policy will be provided: the construction of a transcontinental railway; aggressive promotion of immigration; and a system of tariffs. Finally, the paper engages in a selective review of classical texts on the National Policy to determine if any writers recognized the role of ideas in the policy formation process by asking if there is any evidence that politicians were influenced by economic developmental theories. This provides an opportunity to revisit a significant historical moment in the development of Canada’s political economy.

The Reform Party, Stephen Harper, and Milton Friedman: The Ideological Lineages and Foundations of Pierre Poilievre’s Contemporary Canadian Conservatism.: Ryan Kelpin (York University)
Abstract: Despite the rising popularity of Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre, very little in-depth and serious consideration has been given to understanding his political and ideological inspirations and lineages. More often than not, he is simply grouped into the amorphous (right) populist conceptualization or situated as a Canadian version of Donald Trump. This paper argues that these approaches fail to understand Poilievre’s ideological inheritances and the Canadian political historical specificity they exist within. Using a textual and discursive analysis with attention paid to neoliberalism and the history of economic thought, this article links Poilievre’s politics to two fundamental movements. First, his direct experience in the Reform Party under Preston Manning in the 1990s and his continued work alongside Prime Minister Stephen Harper is explored. Secondly, his bolstering of particular neoliberal thinkers throughout his political career (namely Buchanan, Hayek, and Friedman) is made even more explicit through his specific and repeated invocations of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (1962) and A Monetary History of the United States: 1867-1960 (1963) as foundational to his own economic and ideological thought. This article ultimately argues that reducing Poilievre’s politics to simply populism, or even right populism, ignores both the explicitly neoliberal austerity foundations of his politics, and their Canadian historical particularity. To avoid the trap of more generalizable theories of populism, it is necessary to understand the role of the Reform Party and Milton Friedman’s scholarship in the development of Poilievre’s austerity politics.

Trumpism and the Global Right: Revisiting Right-Wing Populism through Three Theoretical Lenses: Mojtaba Mahdavi (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Contemporary global politics is frequently marked by the rise of right-wing populism in the Global North, notably exemplified by Trumpism, and the emergence of religious and nationalist counter-revolutionary forces in the Global South, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Utilizing insights from critical decolonial literature and Chantal Mouffe’s critique of neoliberalism, this paper first conceptualizes right-wing populism through three principal theoretical lenses: liberal, traditional Marxist, and decolonial/post-colonial critiques. It illustrates how a decolonial critique more effectively problematizes both right-wing populism and the neoliberal paradigm. Subsequently, the paper explores how and why the rise of the neoliberal paradigm has significantly contributed to the growth of right-wing populism. Informed by critical decolonial and intersectional studies, it posits that the neoliberal paradigm erodes the dual social pillars of social democracy, namely "social justice" and "societal empowerment." These social pillars promote grassroots, bottom-up approaches to democratic governance, empower ordinary citizens, and counteract right-wing populist leaders whose rhetoric of social justice can often mislead the masses. The paper supports its argument with examples from both the West and the Middle East.

Non-Equivalent Exchange, Enforced Inequalities, and the Fracturing of Community in the World Economy: Paul Kellogg (Athabasca University)
Abstract: Desires for community and belonging in the world system are commendable and widespread. But they will remain just that – desires – unless we confront the structural inequalities that make constructing meaningful global communities extremely difficult. That there are such inequalities in the global workplace is transparently clear. What is much less transparent are the mechanisms that systemically work to construct these inequalities – concretely shaped by states' positions within the world economy. This paper will argue that those positions are socially constructed and can be measured. The paper will begin by reviewing and revising contemporary approaches to mapping the hierarchical nature of the world economy. It will then outline and demonstrate the mechanisms of non-equivalent exchange, enforced by structured inequalities in the relative value of national currencies, which constantly create and reinforce this hierarchy. The theoretical framing of non-equivalent exchange as a mechanism for surplus transfer within the world system was first mooted by Evgenii Preobrazhenskii in his pathbreaking 1926 book, The New Economics. Shortly after that, Preobrazhenskii like so many others would be caught up in the web of Stalin’s Great Terror, and he was never again in a position to pursue his 1926 insights. The concept was, however, picked up by others. Importantly, Ranjit Sau developed a concrete methodology for measuring this non-equivalent exchange, and the paper will develop and deploy a revised and expanded version of Sau’s methodology, using contemporary data sources.