Wicked politics and trashy economics: gender and scandalous expertise
Wicked politics and trashy economics: gender and scandalous expertise
Who gets to speak with authority about the economy? Countering problematic identity-blindness, we develop a framework for exploring how identity designates whose economic expertise is perceived as authentic and authoritative according to the intersectional exclusions of gender, race and class. These exclusionary power dynamics are key to a fuller understanding of the politics of economic expertise, shaping not only who gets to speak with authority about the economy, but also how the economy is conceptualised through models and methods that exclude the full range of economic activity from analysis and debate. We apply these insights to the case of Brexit, and the performance of economic expertise during and after the referendum campaign, focusing on two bodies – Economists for Free Trade (EFT) and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Brexit discourse, Economists for Free Trade (EFT), Feminist Political Economy, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), gendered economic expertise regime, identity
137-171
Clift, Ben
09b8c771-2044-4101-b8c0-f19185a8ad7e
Melhuish, Francesca
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Rosamond, Ben
39405769-ea56-4b4f-a576-c404237804da
20 February 2025
Clift, Ben
09b8c771-2044-4101-b8c0-f19185a8ad7e
Melhuish, Francesca
c0ab0898-d938-4f4e-bca9-af48815d1f69
Rosamond, Ben
39405769-ea56-4b4f-a576-c404237804da
Clift, Ben, Melhuish, Francesca and Rosamond, Ben
(2025)
Wicked politics and trashy economics: gender and scandalous expertise.
Economy and Society, 54 (1), .
(doi:10.1080/03085147.2025.2461960).
Abstract
Who gets to speak with authority about the economy? Countering problematic identity-blindness, we develop a framework for exploring how identity designates whose economic expertise is perceived as authentic and authoritative according to the intersectional exclusions of gender, race and class. These exclusionary power dynamics are key to a fuller understanding of the politics of economic expertise, shaping not only who gets to speak with authority about the economy, but also how the economy is conceptualised through models and methods that exclude the full range of economic activity from analysis and debate. We apply these insights to the case of Brexit, and the performance of economic expertise during and after the referendum campaign, focusing on two bodies – Economists for Free Trade (EFT) and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
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ACCEPTED FINAL VERSION Wicked Politics and Trashy Economics_ Gender and Scandalous Expertise
- Accepted Manuscript
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Wicked politics and trashy economics Gender and scandalous expertise
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Accepted/In Press date: 11 December 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 February 2025
Published date: 20 February 2025
Keywords:
Brexit discourse, Economists for Free Trade (EFT), Feminist Political Economy, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), gendered economic expertise regime, identity
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 497327
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/497327
ISSN: 0308-5147
PURE UUID: 6c789157-3821-4f02-98b3-e14656d00b15
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Date deposited: 20 Jan 2025 17:35
Last modified: 27 Aug 2025 02:17
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Contributors
Author:
Ben Clift
Author:
Francesca Melhuish
Author:
Ben Rosamond
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