Power structures in economics and society: Some remarks on the future of non-mainstream economics

Abstract

Economic approaches that emphasize power dynamics in the political economy or rely on a non-mathematical, non-positivistic, pluralistic methodology are either almost marginalized in (heterodoxy) or excluded from (transdisciplinary non-mainstream) the field of economics. Relying on a combination of the Discursive Political Economy of Economics and a critical sociology of economic knowledge, this article gives a sociological explanation of these paradigmatic conditions and the related future prospects of non-mainstream research within economics in Germany, by incorporating social theory, discourse, and power analysis, and philosophy of science. In doing so, the article argues for a special role of economics in the political economy, which is associated with a legitimatizing and economic-knowledgeproducing function for non-epistemic issues. In a dialectic understanding of society and science, the implementation of classification rankings such as rankings and of a pyramidal hierarchy of publications is viewed as the disciplinary response to its social role. This results in an unequal distribution of power in the field of economics in Germany. The article concludes that a pluralistic change in modern economics cannot be expected, as long there is no social change in terms of the interconnection between the two demands for academic reputation and economic knowledge.