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This paper uses Polanyi's 1944 analysis of policy change—in which there are long-term swings from state regulation to markets and back again, as the consequences of one regime lead to political reactions that in turn reverse the policies. It shows how the Polanyi analysis continued to apply throughout the twentieth and early-twenty-first century, well beyond when he wrote, and that the swings also apply to developing country policy-making. It argues that there are new signs of policy...

This note draws on Polanyi's pendulum in economic policies presented in the the Great Transformation—with swings back and forth between strong restrictions on the market and market domination, each resulting from excesses of the dominant model. The swing he described, when he wrote, was a reaction to the consequences of market domination, notably the Great Depression, and ushered in Keynesianism and the welfare state. In the late twentieth century, there was a swing back towards the market...

The article explores the potential roots of the unsustainability of the intersectoral dynamic. Political economist Karl Polanyi stresses that excesses of globalisation led to the unsustainability among the private, public and civic sectors. The backlash against globalisation and the private sector has its roots in the imbalance among the three sectors. The impact of the absence of regulatory regimes on globalisation's frontiers on the private sector is discussed, as well the process by which...

Class relationships are amongst the fundamental drivers of development, and it is argued here that over the next 30 years a major influence on the pattern and path of development will be exerted by the rise of the ‘new middle classes’ of Asia. At the same time, in the context of the blocked transition of the present, it seems unlikely that those who are marginalised and excluded will be able adequately to organise resistance, much less change structures of power, but poverty will be managed...

This Special Issue comes from the Development Studies Association (DSA) 30th Anniversary conference in 2008. The theme was ‘Development's Invisible Hands’, focusing on the forces likely to influence global change and re-shape development agendas over the next 30 years. The first section comprises brief invited thinkpieces mainly from DSA past presidents. Interestingly, while some focus on Adam Smith's original ‘invisible hand’ analogy and others discuss a range of non-market issues, several...

Analysis of the role of markets in development is mainly focused on their ability to promote material provisioning. Polanyi argued that markets were only one approach to material provisioning, and that the concept of the self-regulating market had become disembedded from society. He was concerned that processes of provisioning be understood within the wider framework of society and developed the concept of instituted process as a means to understand this role. This paper sets out to explore...

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This paper argues that the legitimacy of the global order depends not on economic progress alone, but on the progressive naturalization of its epistemological foundations, through 'new solutions' to old problems by states and development agencies. New solutions become methods of social control through which the dominant visions of what count as viable futures are reproduced. We critique efforts to humanize development (e.g., by the World Bank, Amartya Sen) as evidence of development's...

Globalisation can in a polanyian sense be understood as a double movement. Societal reaction to the shortcomings of the corporate driven process of globalisation from above (the first movement) creates a counter movement from below (the second movement). The relations between different actors within the political landscape and the area of tensions between the two movements are characterised by the gramscian war of position and its power struggle over the hegemonic discourse. At times the...

The article review three books about the role of the state in promoting development. It includes "Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies," by Robert Bates, "Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation," by Peter Evans and "The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time," by Karl Polanyi.

We come to an analysis of Third Worldism through an historical understanding of the development project, one that locates Third Worldism as a moment in a broader series of resistances both to capital and colonialism, and to the techniques used by the state to maintain hegemony. Viewing Third Worldism in this wider context, we argue, enables us to not only explain the failure of Third Worldism to deliver on its vision of emancipation from colonialism, but to also explain the shape of...

This short paper discusses how some of Karl Polanyi's key ideas can help shed light on the processes of development and crisis in the world today. It begins by taking up the role of economic liberalisation and the state. Then it discusses Polanyi's identification of the 'impulse' for 'social protection' and suggests it is crucial to an understanding not only of the role of the state in development but also politics in the developing world. It finishes by applying some of these ideas to...

Assuming a close relationship between peace and development, this paper analyses a succession of schools of thought in development forming part of three distinct, historically contextualized development and security discourses: the industrialization imperative in the emerging state-system in nineteenth-century Europe, the international concern with global poverty in the bipolar post second world war world and the current meaning of development in a globalized and increasingly chaotic world....

Karl Polanyi provides a rich repertoire of concepts to build a critical understanding of the world of globalization and alternatives to the status quo. In reviewing two recent collections around the work of Polanyi, we show some of the concepts that might be developed in terms of ‘using Polanyi’. This would include his inspired double-movement concept and the way he dealt with non-capitalist societies. Polanyi is as relevant for the so-called developing societies as he is for the advanced...

ABSTRACT A reading of Karl Polanyi’s work gives us a broader and more plural view of the development process beyond the exclusively economic dimension. This scientific text aims to recover the theoretical contribution of Karl Polanyi and its contribution to the understanding of the development process from a plural and substantive conception of economy. The key lesson learned in this research is that regardless of a country’s economic system, one should pay attention to the existing...