Economists occupy leading positions in many different sectors including central and private banks, multinational corporations, the state and the media, as well as serving as policy consultants on everything from health to the environment and security. Power and Influence of Economists explores the interconnected relationship between power, knowledge and influence which has led economics to be both a source and beneficiary of widespread power and influence. The contributors to this book explore the complex and diverse methods and channels that economists have used to exert and expand their influence from different disciplinary and national perspectives. Four different analytical views on the role of power and economics are taken: first, the role of economic expert discourses as power devices for the formation of influential expertise; second, the logics and modalities of governmentality that produce power/knowledge apparatuses between science and society; third, economists as involved in networks between academia, politics and the media; and forth, economics considered as a social field, including questions of legitimacy and unequal relations between economists based on the detention of various capitals. The volume includes case studies on a variety of national configurations of economics, such as the US, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico and Brazil, as well as international spaces and organisations such as the IMF. This book provides innovative research perspectives for students and scholars of heterodox economics, cultural political economy, sociology of professions, network studies, and the social studies of power, discourse and knowledge. "The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9780367817084, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license."

Economists occupy leading positions in many different sectors including central and private banks, multinational corporations, the state and the media, as well as serving as policy consultants on everything from health to the environment and security. Power and Influence of Economists explores the interconnected relationship between power, knowledge and influence which has led economics to be both a source and beneficiary of widespread power and influence. The contributors to this book explore the complex and diverse methods and channels that economists have used to exert and expand their influence from different disciplinary and national perspectives. Four different analytical views on the role of power and economics are taken: first, the role of economic expert discourses as power devices for the formation of influential expertise; second, the logics and modalities of governmentality that produce power/knowledge apparatuses between science and society; third, economists as involved in networks between academia, politics and the media; and forth, economics considered as a social field, including questions of legitimacy and unequal relations between economists based on the detention of various capitals. The volume includes case studies on a variety of national configurations of economics, such as the US, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico and Brazil, as well as international spaces and organisations such as the IMF. This book provides innovative research perspectives for students and scholars of heterodox economics, cultural political economy, sociology of professions, network studies, and the social studies of power, discourse and knowledge. "The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9780367817084, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license."

Wahrend sich die Wissenschaftsforschung in den letzten Jahren in grossen Teilen mit Fragen der Organisationsbildung und -steuerung, mit Methoden der Evaluation von Leistung und Qualitat sowie mit der Analyse von wissenschaftlichen Mikrowelten befasst hat, wurden Studien, die das Verhaltnis von Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft kritisch aus diskurs-, macht- und feldtheoretischen Perspektiven untersuchen, bisher in unabhangigen Einzelprojekten durchgefuhrt. Obwohl diese Beitrage in den jeweils behandelten gesellschaftlichen Bereichen auf Resonanz stossen und eine Fulle von wissenschaftstheoretischen Anstoessen bieten, ist die entsprechende Diskussion bisher nicht in Buchform sichtbar. Der vorliegende Band fuhrt diese Perspektiven erstmals zu einem Austausch zusammen und schliesst damit in der deutschsprachigen Wissenschaftsforschung eine Lucke.

Jens Maesse geht im vorliegenden Band der Frage nach, wie die gesellschaftliche Bedeutung von OEkonomischen Expertentum in Politik, Medien und Wirtschaft zu erklaren ist, indem er die akademische Welt von OEkonominnen und OEkonomen in den Blick nimmt. Mit einer diskursanalytischen Theorie sozialer Macht werden die sozialen und diskursiven Prozesse beobachtet, die einen Elitekult in der akademischen Welt der Volkswirtschaftslehre hervorbringen. Die Studie beschreibt und untersucht jedoch nicht nur die Prozesse und Dynamiken der Herausbildung von "Eliteoekonomen", sie fragt auch nach den gesellschaftlichen Ursachen und Hintergrunden des Elitismus. Damit wird erstmals eine systematische diskurssoziologische Analyse daruber vorgelegt, wie es zur Elitenbildung in der deutschsprachigen Volkswirtschaftslehre und zum Aufbau der gesellschaftlichen Deutungshoheit einer bestimmten oekonomischen Richtung gekommen ist. Der Elitismus in der VWL, so die These des Buches, ist allerdings nicht nur auf wissenschaftsinterne Prozesse zuruckzufuhren. Er ist vielmehr der Effekt gesellschaftlicher Legitimitatsbedurfnisse, die im Zuge von Globalisierung und Bildungsexpansion entstanden sind.