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Paradigms and Paradox: The Politics of Economic Ideas in Two Moments of Crisis
Author(s) -
Blyth Mark
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/gove.12010
Subject(s) - straddle , epistemology , politics , argument (complex analysis) , social constructivism , sociology , positive economics , order (exchange) , constructivism (international relations) , state (computer science) , generative grammar , economics , social science , political science , international relations , philosophy , law , computer science , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , algorithm
This article argues that there is a paradox at the heart of Hall's “Policy Paradigms” framework stemming from the desire to see both state and society as generative of social learning while employing two different logics to explain how such learning takes place: what I term the “Bayesian” and “constructivist” versions of the policy paradigms causal story. This creates a paradox as both logics cannot be simultaneously true. However, it is a generative paradox insofar as the power of the policy paradigms framework emerges, in part, from this attempt to straddle these distinct positions, producing an argument that is greater than the sum of its parts. In the second part of the article, I discuss the recent global financial crisis, an area where we should see third‐order change, but we do no not. That we do not strengthens the case for the constructivist causal story.