SLIDE 1 : POLITICAL ECONOMY

What does political economy mean?

The term political economy refers to a branch of social sciences that focuses
on relationships between individuals, governments, and public policy. It is
also used to describe the policies set by governments that affect their nations'
economies.

What is the primary concern of political economy?

The main concern of political economy is to determine the relationship

between governments and individuals, and how public policy affects society.
This is done through the study of sociology, politics, and economics.

What are the characteristics of political economy?

Some of the characteristics or themes of a political economy include the

distribution of wealth, how goods and services are produced, who owns
property and other resources, who profits from production, supply and
demand, and how public policy and government interaction impact society.

Political economists research how economic ideas like capitalism, socialism,

and communism operate in practice. Any economic theory is, at its most
basic level, a mechanism for managing the distribution of a finite amount of
resources in a way that benefits the greatest number of people. Political
economy was previously the conventional name for what we now call
economics in a broader sense. The word was coined by Adam Smith, John
Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to describe their beliefs. With the
introduction of more rigorous statistical tools for studying economic aspects in
the early twentieth century, the shorter term economy was replaced.

SLIDE 2: NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY

This "new political economy" tries to integrate the classical political

economists' (Smith to Marx) approach with more contemporary "analytical
developments." Gamble (1996),[4] Watsonhimself, and a number of authors
in the work published by Higgott and Payne all take this method. The
approach "rejects the old dichotomies – between agency and structure,
between ideas and material interests, and between states and markets." It
also aims to be a "hosting metaphor" for political debate about societal
preferences by making explicit the normative assumptions that underpin its
analysis. Any government policy that has an economic influence is still
referred to as "political economy."

SA HISTORY BASAHIN NALANG UNG SA LINK