Inaugural Lecture: Professor Ben Rosamond
Introduction
Conservative economic policy discourse since the global financial crisis: from BS to deepfake.
Professor Ben Rosamond presents his inaugural lecture at the School of Social and Political Science.
‘The economy’ is often the central focus of political exchange. While different claims about the economy may reflect alternative ideological perspectives on how scarce resources should be distributed, a notable feature across advanced democracies in recent decades has been the ‘depoliticisation’ of economic policy. Depoliticisation is visible both in the practice of economic governance and through the emergence and propagation of ‘expert’ understandings of the economy. Using the case of the UK since the global financial crisis, Ben Rosamond explores how these two facets have interacted in governing discourses about the proper management and orientation of the economy. He shows how, during the short span of time that witnessed the phase of post-crisis austerity budgeting, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the strange episode of ‘Trussonomics’, Conservative economic discourse became increasingly detached from both mainstream technocratic understandings of the economy and everyday citizen experiences of the economy. Meanwhile, certain claims about the economy – especially the tendency to fetishise deficits and debts – have remained remarkably resilient, despite the collapse in public confidence in Conservative stewardship of the economy.
With introduction by Professor John Devaney, Head of School.
Recorded on 6 December 2023.
- Media
Professor Rosamond's presentation, on slide 2, refers to the following pieces of reviewed and published writing:
Top row middle: Post-truth Politics, Bullshit and Bad Ideas: ‘Deficit Fetishism’ in the UK
Top row right: European Integration and the Politics of Economic Ideas: Economics, Economists and Market Contestation in the Brexit Debate
Bottom row left: Non-majoritarian institutions: Two strands of liberalism in European economic governance