The thesis starts with an exploration and development of the research problem in chapter 2. It situates the recent rise of heterodox economics through a discussion of the various forms of critique that has been levelled at mainstream economics since the 2008 crisis. The consolidation of various schools of thought under the umbrella label “heterodoxy” since the 1990s has given rise to debates about what neoclassical and heterodox economics really mean. Through a strategic literature survey of the main positions in these debates among historians of economic thought and heterodox economists, different conceptions of the nature and historical durability of the mainstream and its relation to heterodoxy are explored.
Finally, building on this review, I present three analytically distinct aspects of this divide that emerge from this literature. These are the ontological (axioms about the nature of social actors and relations), epistemological (methodological imperative of formal modelling practices), and social (a divide between distinct relationally constituted social thought collectives) aspects.
Chapter 3 presents an extensive review of previous theory and research in the relevant areas indicated in chapter 2. The chapter opens with a brief general account of the historical development of the modern field of science and technology studies as part of a broader cross-disciplinary development during the last century of post-positivist approaches to science. The next section devotes considerable attention to the styles of scientific reasoning literature, discussing its development and different formulations. The third section is a literature review focusing on previous research that takes economics as its object. I then zoom in on the work of Mary S. Morgan, who represents a combination of the two previous sections in her historical study of modern economics in terms of Hacking’s styles of reasoning. However, her study takes a disciplinary style of
reasoning for granted, and doesn’t consider the existence of internal heterogeneity in the form of the mainstream-heterodoxy split. Finally, I review previous research on evaluation of scientific quality and, overlapping with that, studies of Swedish expert evaluation reports.
In chapter 4 the theoretical framework is developed. It proceeds with a synthesis of my interpretation of styles of reasoning, with relevant sociological concepts, and moves from the overarching cognitive structure of historical styles, towards the social structure of thought collectives and disciplines, and onto the socialisation and agency of actors engaged in boundary work and evaluation practices. The notion of relational disciplinary styles is thus developed as a sociological version of the styles approach.
Chapter 5 provides a brief background to the empirical case with a very brief account of the general development of economic thought, with a special focus on Sweden, and an overview and descriptive data on education and research in contemporary Swedish economics.
Chapter 6 present the empirical material and methodological considerations at some depth. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first covers the interview study and provides first a general background on interview methodology, and then the principles behind the selection of informants, the interviews, and their analysis. The second section provides an introduction to the institution of expert evaluation reports in Swedish academic hiring (sakkunnigutlåtanden), and reports the collection and selection and analysis of the material, together with some summarising quantitative data on the material.
The results of the interview study is the topic of chapter 7. The chapter is thematically organised, and illustrates the interpretation of the interviews with extensive excerpts from the transcripts. Among the themes covered are the disciplinary identity and the view of the doctoral programmes as an important institution for maintaining “a strong central paradigm”. Discussions about the core of economics also circle around notions of a small set of common theoretical tools or points of departure, and the importance of strong methodological skills in modelling and econometrics. However, there are also accounts that downplay disciplinary identity and argue in terms of the strong similarity between economics and other sciences. Boundary work seems to sometimes be a matter of disciplinary boundaries, as in jokes about neighbouring disciplines, but it doesn’t necessarily adhere to discipline. Instead, I show how the styles approach allows us to make sense of these situations as cases where similarities in style of reasoning cut across disciplinary boundaries and thus act as bridges, while in other cases it functions as effective barriers against heterodox approaches within the discipline.
The heterodox interview narratives point to important sources of intellectual
socialisation outside the disciplinary core, and they include accounts that diverge strongly from the majority view.
Chapter 8 is the second empirical chapter, devoted to the analysis of expert evaluation reports. The analysis uses the lengthy reports where expert evaluate scientific oeuvres of the candidates for professorships to elicit an image of the normal science of modern economics. Since the reviewers are by definition senior trusted professors who are chosen for being good representatives of the discipline, the collective effect of their judgement is not only the outcome of evaluations, but can also be taken to represent the most authoritative view of the core of the discipline. In some especially interesting cases, we can follow their argumentation about the boundaries of the discipline. I find that a few features are expected of an excellent economist. Among these are command of modelling as a central epistemic practice, and technical econometric skills. However, it is not enough to be technically or mathematically skilled; something more is required, namely a knowledge of the core of economics, which is the ability to reason with economic theory, and to be able to ask really interesting questions, real “economic”
questions. This material also grants us insights into institutionalised evaluation practice and how experts reason to justify and legitimate their judgement. During the studied 25-year period, there has been a marked shift in these evaluation practices, as evaluators rely increasingly on the technical judgement device of journal rankings instead of extensive reading of submitted materials.
In chapter 9 I finally draw together and extend the empirical findings of the previous chapters into an overarching analytical discussion. Among other things, I argue that the increasing use of journal ranking metrics in expert evaluation reports has parallels to the plethora of similar social situations where metrics and numbers govern and regulate the social world, and suggest that we could think of it as yet another classification situation. The closing discussion broadens the perspective to a comparison with other disciplines, and opens a set of new questions generated by the relational disciplinary styles approach. Finally, I attempt to give some indications of the implications of this study, both for the advocates of pluralism in economics, and for other social scientists, including sociologists.