Pluralism and the economic geography of development

In: Lee, Frederic, ed. Pluralism in economics. Forthcoming, 2007.

 

Abstract

Economic geographers have long sustained an intense critique of the neoclassical orthodoxy that grips the economics discipline, zealously defending their pluralist traditions against the ‘monism’ of neoclassical initiatives such Paul Krugman’s ‘new economic geography’. However, centralisation of theoretical and methodological issues has limited, constrained and fragmented this critical literature, deflecting the focus of attention away from some basic issues of political economy. This is particularly evident in the case of the economic geography of development, where a general failure by geographers to focus sufficiently sharply on the political economy and historical legacy of colonialism has all-too-often led them to replicate some assumptions of the economic orthodoxy of which they are otherwise such trenchant critics.

Introduction

Krugman’s ‘new economic geography’ as economics ‘monism’

Economic geography – ‘immanent critique’ of the economic orthodoxy

Economists and geographers in inter-disciplinary standoff

Pluralism and inter-disciplinary ‘imports’

Pluralism and ‘mid-range theory’

Economic geography and the territorial integrity of the nation state

Pluralism and colonialism

Pluralism, the peripheral state, and socialism

Conclusions

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