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Standard histories of European integration emphasize the immediate aftermath of World War II as the moment when the seeds of the European Union were first sown. However, the interwar years witnessed a flurry of concern with the reconstruction of the world order, generating arguments that cut across the different social sciences, then plunged in a period of disciplinary soul-searching and feverish activism. Economics was no exception: several of the most prominent interwar economists, such as F. A. Hayek, Jan Tinbergen, Lionel Robbins, François Perroux, J. M. Keynes and Robert Triffin, contributed directly to larger public discussions on peace, order and stability.
This edited volume combines these different strands of historical narrative into a unified framework, showing how political economy was integral to the interwar literature on international relations and, conversely, how economists were eager to incorporate international politics into their own concerns. The book brings together a group of scholars with varied disciplinary backgrounds, whose combined perspectives allow us to explore three analytical layers. The first part studies how different forms of economic knowledge, from economic programming to international finance, were used in the quest for a stable European order. The second part focuses on the existence of conflicting expectations about the role of social scientific knowledge, either as a source of technical solutions or as an input for enlightened public discussion. The third part illustrates how certain ideas and beliefs found concrete expression in specific institutional settings, which amplified their political leverage. The three parts are enclosed by an introductory essay, laying out the broad topics explored in the volume, and a substantial postscript tying all the historical threads together.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Eucken's Competition with Keynes: Beyond the Ordoliberal Allergy to the Keynesian Medicine.- 3. Third-Way Perspectives on Order in Interwar France: Personalism and the Political Economy of François Perroux.- 4. Corporatism and Planning in Monnet's Idea of Europe.- 5. The Construction of an International Order in the Work of Jan Tinbergen.- 6. At the Origins of European Monetary Cooperation: Triffin, Bretton Woods, and the European Payments Union.- 7. Technocracy, Corporatism, and the Development of 'Economic Parliaments' in Interwar Europe.- 8. Pluralism, Tripartism and the Foundation of the International Labour Organization.- 9. Pluralism and Political Economy in Interwar Britain: G.D.H. Cole on Economic Planning.- 10. Ordoliberalism and the Rethinking of Liberal Rationality.- 11. Classical Liberalism, Non-Interventionism and the Origins of European Integration: Luigi Einaudi, Friedrich A. von Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke.- 12. Staving off the Protectionist Slide: Snowden and the Struggle to Keep Britain Open.- 13. The Formation of Research Institutes on Business Cycles in Europe in the Interwar Period: The 'Kiel School' and (In)voluntary Internationalization.- 14. Divided by an Uncommon Language? The Oxford Institute of Statistics and British Academia (1935-1944).- 15. The Intellectual Origins of European Integration.
About the author
Alexandre Mendes Cunha is Associate Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He specializes in the international diffusion of economic ideas throughout history.
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak is Associate Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He studies the historical interplay between social, political, and economic ideas.
Report
"This book brings interesting perspectives on the interwar period, showing also the link with the process of European integration in the postwar period." (Ivo Maes and Robert Triffin Chair, History of Political Economy, Vol. 55 (2), April, 2023)
