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The heterogeneous spatial and individual impacts of the Great Recession, Brexit and COVID-19 have generated an important challenge for macroeconomic and regional/spatial modellers to consider greater integration of their approaches. Focusing on agent heterogeneity at the ITL 1 level in the UK, we propose the National Institute Regional Modelling System (NiReMS) – a synthesis of dynamic microsimulation with a spatial regional macroeconometric model. The model gives regional macro projections while allowing for household level inference. To showcase the model, we explore the impact of discontinuing the uplift in Universal Credit (UC) before the end of the pandemic and show that it led to more households consuming less. Importantly, the proposed framework highlights the unequal distributional impact across regions of the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism is a paradoxical phenomenon that resists easy categorisation because it both rejects and intensifies certain elements of technocracy. Populist politics is at once a backlash against liberal-technocratic ideology and policy and an attempted corrective of some of its worst excesses, such as increasing inequality or pressures on wages. Despite deep differences, both rest on a binary logic that conceals alternatives to the convergence around variants of techno-populism defended by either 'corporate populists' or 'insurgent populists'. One alternative is a public policy programme focused on the building of an economic democracy with more democratic workplaces and a greater emphasis on the dignity of decent jobs, besides policies to reduce regional disparities and foster shared prosperity. But policies alone cannot fully address the deep-seated grievances fuelling the support for populists. Fundamental institutional reform is needed to devolve power and wealth to people and the places where they live and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It also rests on a simplistic binary opposition between state and market when in reality both Britain's central state and free market have failed to produce a booming economy based on high productivity, high skills and high wages. This spatial segregation between high- and low-productivity areas is a key defining feature of the UK economy that differentiates it from virtually all other advanced economies of the OECD where high- and low-productivity areas are much more evenly distributed (Carrascal-Incera I et al., i [3]). The UK's lopsided development across its regions and communities is as much a social reality as it is an economic one, and more state spending alone will not rebalance the economy or society. The UK's economic model is broken, stuck as it is in a low-productivity, low-wage and low-growth cycle whence it will not escape by way of disrupting the old orthodoxies alone. [Extracted from the article]

And accordingly, when the second lockdown (5 November to 2 December 2020) and the third lockdown (5 January - to be phased out on 12 April, 17 May and 21 June 2021) were declared, even though the economy proved to be increasingly resilient, fiscal policy was still asked to deal with the return of the virus and the mutated, highly infectious strain B117 of SARS-CoV-2.It is then a question for the Bank of England to decide whether that quantum of risk and resource transfers undertaken by fiscal policy require any changes in the stance of monetary and financial policies (Tucker, [50]). The new plan is required to satisfy ideals of social justice much higher than we have been attaining without it. i I J. M. Keynes, How to Pay for the War (1940) i Towards better fiscal policies Modern representative democracy is faced with the Whiggish directive to improve living standards with the main lever in possession of any government being its fiscal policy. Lazarowicz ([35]) also highlights the interactions between fiscal policy and monetary policy within the context of a simple model of monetary and fiscal policy coordination and suggests that optimal fiscal policy not only must flex in the changing economic conditions, but also condition on monetary policy. That fiscal policy framework set two clear objectives for fiscal policy: to achieve sustainable public financess and to support the effectiveness of monetary policy. [Extracted from the article]

This special issue of the National Institute Economic Review is being published at an unsettled and uncertain time for the United Kingdom. In June 2022, the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence to be held in October 2023. While it is unlikely that the referendum will be granted by the UK government, current polling suggests the outcome of such a referendum would be too close to call. Eight years after Scotland voted 55%–45% to stay in the Union, independence remains a live issue, which raises fundamental questions about economic and governance arrangements between Westminster and the UK's constituent parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of public policy-making has in recent decades been driven by the idea of evidence-based policy – policy rooted in the principles of social science and, more specifically, empirical validation based on social and behavioural science. This article argues that evidence-based policy, while helping to improve the design of policies aimed at changing individual behaviour, lacks a recognition that individual and group choices are embedded in social relationships and institutions. There is a risk of over-relying not only on probabilistic models that under-state our condition of 'radical uncertainty' but also on data and metrics that are disconnected from the everyday experience of workers and citizens whose needs and interests cannot always be measured or managed. Since uncertainty is a fundamental reality of both the economy and social life, policy-making needs robust conceptual narratives to make sense of numbers and provide a sound basis on which to make decisions allied to ethical judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the media coverage in relation to populism has focused either on populist moments like the Brexit vote or on populist leaders such as Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. Meanwhile, the academic literature on populism is divided between two broad approaches. First, an emphasis in economics on policy (e.g. Dornbusch and Edwards, 1992) and, second, an accentuation in political science on ideology (e.g. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Both approaches capture important aspects, including the rejection of orthodox monetary and fiscal policy positions and a repudiation not only of established elites but also of pluralism and some of the key institutions on which the rule of law and democracy depend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of the mutual implication between the economic and the political order of society by revisiting Antonio Genovesi's theory of economia civile (civil economy). Topics discussed include the importance of Genovesi's analysis of production structures for his theory of internal and foreign trade; the transformation processes from raw materials to finished consumption goods; and philosophical anthropology of Genovesi.

Notions of anarchy and an artificial state-centric system underpin much of modern political and IR theory. However, the primacy of cultural association over anarchy and artifice has once again come to the fore, notably in constructivist and 'culturalist' approaches. The paper argues that these approaches make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the international but rest on a secular ontology that brackets religion and transcendent notions of morality and justice out of the equation. By contrast, the work of Edmund Burke offers an alternative conception of the international. Contrary to constructivism, Burke considers association not as socially constructed but as reflecting a natural order governed by customs and traditions. Such an order gives rise to 'commonwealths of culture' governed by a transcendent morality that for Burke is God-given. And contrary to 'culturalist' approaches, Burke conceptualises identity not in essentialist terms but rather as an organically evolving reality that is shaped by both ideas and material forces—notions of common humanity and universal standards of justice, which are mediated through history and embodied in particular practices. For Burke, the international requires 'obligations written in the heart', which are more fundamental than the formal standards of 'papers and seals'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the growing literature in English on the work of the Neapolitan political economist Antonio Genovesi (1713-1769), this paper focuses on his conception of civil economy (economia civile) as a theory of government. By contrast with existing interpretations, the argument is that for Genovesi virtue is a significant ordering device of the polity: virtue mediates between passions and reason, and the human capacity for virtue helps individuals better to realise their different talents. This, in turn, means that virtue is central to the division of labour and the right proportions between different activities, including the balance between consumption and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit and support for anti-establishment insurgencies suggest that British politics is moving away from the old left-right opposition towards a new divide between the defenders and detractors of progressive liberalism. As this article suggests, progressive liberalism differs significantly from both classical and new liberalism. It fuses free-market economics with social egalitarianism and identity politics. Both the hard left and the radical right reject this combination and want to undo a number of liberal achievements. British politics is also moving in a postliberal direction. In the economy, postliberalism signals a shift from rampant market capitalism to economic justice and reciprocity. In society, it signals a shift from individualism and egalitarianism to social solidarity and fraternal relations. And politically, it signals a shift from the minority politics of vested interests and balkanised group identity to a majority politics based on a balance of interests, shared identity and the embedding of state and market in the intermediary institutions of civil society. This article argues that postliberalism is redefining Britain's political centre ground in an age where neither progressive liberalism nor reactionary anti-liberalism commands majority support. First, it charts the ascendancy of progressive liberalism over the past quarter-century. Second, it contrasts anti-liberal reactions with postliberal alternatives, before exploring why earlier iterations of postliberalism failed to gain traction with the political mainstream. Third, it provides a discussion and critique of Theresa May's postliberal conservatism, notably the tension between free-market globalisation and free trade, on the one hand, and the support for national industry and the indigenous working class, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-democracy and cognate concepts suggest that the postwar period of democratisation has given way to a concentration of power in the hands of small groups that are unrepresentative and unaccountable, as exemplified by the rise of multinational corporations and their influence on democratic politics. This article goes further to argue that this does not fully capture the triple threat facing liberal democracy: first, the rise of a new oligarchy that strengthens executive power at the expense of parliament and people; second, the resurgence of populism and demagogy linked to a backlash against technocratic rule and procedural politics; third, the emergence of anarchy associated with the atomisation of society and a weakening of social ties and civic bonds. In consequence, liberal democracy risks sliding into a form of 'democratic despotism' that maintains the illusion of free choice while instilling a sense of 'voluntary servitude' as conceptualised by Tocqueville. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current global economic crisis concerns the way in which contemporary capitalism has turned to financialisation as a double cure for both a falling rate of profit and a deficiency of demand. Although this turning is by no means unprecedented, policies of financialisation have depressed demand (in part as a result of the long-term stagnation of average wages) while at the same time not proving adequate to restore profits and growth. This paper argues that the current crisis is less the 'normal' one that has to do with a constitutive need to balance growth of abstract wealth with demand for concrete commodities. Rather, it marks a meta-crisis of capitalism that is to do with the difficulties of sustaining abstract growth as such. This meta-crisis is the tendency at once to abstract from the real economy of productive activities and to reduce everything to its bare materiality. By contrast with a market economy that binds material value to symbolic meaning, a capitalist economy tends to separate matter from symbol and reduce materiality to calculable numbers representing 'wealth'. Such a conception of wealth rests on the aggregation of abstract numbers that cuts out all the relational goods and the 'commons' on which shared prosperity depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to theorise religion in International Relations (IR)? Does the concept of post-secularity advance the debate on religion beyond the ‘return of religion’ and the crisis of secular reason? This article argues that the post-secular remains trapped in the logic of secularism. First, a new account is provided of the ‘secularist bias’ that characterises mainstream IR theory: (a) defining religion in either essentialist or epiphenomenal terms; (b) positing a series of ‘antagonistic binary opposites’ such as the secular versus the religious; and (c) de-sacralising and re-sacralising the public square. The article then analyses post-secularity, showing that it subordinates faith under secular reason and sacralises the ‘other’ by elevating difference into the sole transcendental term. Theorists of the post-secular such as Jürgen Habermas or William Connolly also equate secular modernity with metaphysical universalism, which they seek to replace with post-metaphysical pluralism. In contrast, the alternative that this article outlines is an international theory that develops the Christian realism of the English School in the direction of a metaphysical-political realism. Such a realism binds together reason with faith and envisions a ‘corporate’ association of peoples and nations beyond the secularist settlement of Westphalia that is centred on national states and transnational markets. By linking immanent values to transcendent principles, this approach can rethink religion in international affairs and help revive grand theory in IR. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dichotomy between intended and unintended outcomes of individual and collective action is central to political economy. It concerns the relationship of markets and states and their link to the constitution of society. As such, this dichotomy points to the patterns of connectivity that provide the social embedding of markets and states. The present paper argues that civil society is best understood as the principal locus of connectivity in which markets and states operate. Civil society so configured is neither separate from the body politic and commercial society nor subordinate to them but instead constitutes the primary objective structure of the social domain. It embeds the causal arrangements that determine the crisscrossing of both intended and unintended outcomes in specific contexts. Within the social domain, dispositions of the means-end type interact with non-instrumental dispositions. One important implication is that civil society is compatible with a range of different political economies and specific socio-economic arrangements. Based on a typology of three distinct paradigms of civil society, we argue that the proximity paradigm is conducive to the discovery of political economies that foster greater openness and specificity compared with the political and the economic paradigm. This paper suggests that the theory of civil society in general and the proximity paradigm in particular are indispensable heuristic tools to identity the unrealized capacities inherent in any given social configuration. A proximity heuristic is applied to the discussion of credit arrangements and policy. We conclude that a hierarchy of policy principles is necessary to preserve the primacy of social connectivity over means-end relationships and the conditions for context-specific arrangements and policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the reorientation of United States foreign policy from Europe to Asia opens up new opportunities for a pan-European security community. Under President Obama's leadership, the United States is no longer looking at the world through a predominantly European prism. Washington is shifting focus from Europe to the Asian-Pacific 'rimland' where America is competing with China for transregional hegemony. This shift in emphasis marks an unprecedented disengagement from Europe and European security since 1917. That puts the onus on Europe's key powers, including the European Union, Russia, and Turkey. The main options are either a European takeover of NATO or the creation of a Euro-Atlantic or even pan-Eurasian security community from Vancouver to Vladivostok. In turn, the three options for U.S. foreign policy are (1) to reassert total control over European security and undercut any independent initiatives; (2) to disengage from Europe; or (3) to facilitate European autonomy in security and defense matters in a way that secures U.S. participation in a new security community. Faced with the risk of military overstretch and ongoing economic turmoil, the third option seems best to serve American foreign policy interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that modern sovereignty is not simply a legal or political concept that is coterminous with the modern nation-state. Rather, at the theoretical level modern sovereign power is inscribed into a wider theological dialectic between “the one” and “the many”. Modernity fuses juridical-constitutional models of supreme state authority with a new, “biopolitical” account of power whereby natural life and the living body of the individual are the object of politics and are subject to state control (section 1). The origins of this dialectic go back to changes within Christian theology in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. In particular, these changes can be traced to Ockham's denial of the universal Good in things, Suárez's priority of the political community over the ecclesial body and Hobbes's “biopolitical” definition of power as state dominion over life (section 2). At the practical level, modern sovereignty has involved both the national state and the transnational market. The “revolutions in sovereignty” that gave rise to the modern state and the modern market were to some considerable extent shaped by theological concepts and changes in religious institutions and practices: first, the supremacy of the modern national state over the transnational papacy and national churches; second, the increasing priority of individuality over collectivity; third, a growing focus on contractual proprietary relations at the expense of covenantal ties and communal bonds (section 3). By subjecting both people and property to uniform standards of formal natural rights and abstract monetary value, financial capitalism and liberal secular democracy are part of the “biopolitical” logic that subordinates the sanctity of life and land to the secular sacrality of the state and the market. In Pope Benedict's theology, we can find the contours of a post-secular political economy that challenges the monopoly of modern sovereignty (sections 4–5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis identifies a new dynamic evident in the world and explains why it is changing the existing power balance and reshaping the geopolitics of the wider Middle East and beyond. The decline of Western power and the rise of a new nexus between Central Asia and the wider Middle East are likely to strengthen the influence of Russia and China at the expense of the United States and Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the political and legal problem of legitimate wars in relation to the theological question of justice and peace. It begins by charting a brief genealogical account of how in the modern era the Christian ‘just war’ tradition was formalised and thus drained of much of its substantive and practical context. The essay also examines and rejects a number of contemporary attempts to use ‘just war’ theory in order to legitimate modern warfare. The argument is that both neoconservative realism and political liberalism instrumentalise the ‘just war’ tradition to defend and extend central state power. Christian pacifism has a compelling critique of realism and liberalism, but it fails to offer a genuinely transformative ontology and politics. The essay concludes by calling for a metaphysics of peace that can resist the modern primacy of violence and make real the divine promise of a harmoniously ordered cosmos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about the problem of individuation in metaphysics in connection to the question of individuality in politics. According to the article, it denies the assumption in much of ancient, contemporary and modern philosophy and theology that unity and diversity are contradictory and that this contradiction results to conflict. The proposed option is a metaphysics and politics of relationality. Several views from different philosophers are discussed in relation to the problem are presented such as those of Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and Boethius.