This module introduces students to different ways of understanding ‘the British economy’ and its relationship to British Politics. Through learning key concepts and issues in political economy, students will broaden their understanding of how political actors construct, influence, and respond to the ‘economy’. They will interrogate the maintenance of and challenges to socioeconomic inequalities, the political fights over who gets to be an economic ‘expert’, and how politicians, businesses, trade unions, citizens argue over the ‘good’ society. Students will encounter and intervene in these debates through studying the case study of Britain since 1945: from nationalisation and the welfare state to privatisation and austerity; from globalisation to the global financial crisis; and from the aftershocks of the British empire to the ongoing legacy of fossil fuel dependence.
