Enacting Dismal Science: New Perspectives on the Performativity of Economics (Perspectives from Social Economics)

In this book, sociologists, philosophers, and economists investigate the conceptual issues around the performativity of economics over a variety of disciplinary contexts and provide new case studies illuminating this phenomenon. In featuring the latest contributions to the performativity debate the book revives discussion of the fundamental questions: What precise meaning can we attribute to the notion of performativity? What empirical evidence can help us recognize economics as performative? And what consequences does performativity have for contemporary societies? The contributions demonstrate how performativity can serve as a powerful conceptual resource in dealing with economic knowledge, as an inspiring framework for investigating performative practices, and as an engine of discovery for thinking of the economic proper. Front Matter....Pages i-vii After the Turn: How the Performativity of Economics Matters....Pages 1-27 Performativity Rationalized....Pages 29-52 Performative Mechanisms....Pages 53-86 ‘Doing’ Laboratory Experiments: An Ethnomethodological Study of the Performative Practice in Behavioral Economic Research....Pages 87-108 The Problem with Economics: Naturalism, Critique and Performativity....Pages 109-129 Performativity Matters: Economic Description as a Moral Problem....Pages 131-150 The IS–LMization of the General Theory and the Construction of Hydraulic Governability in Postwar Keynesian Macroeconomics....Pages 151-181 Performativity and Emergence of Institutions....Pages 183-200 Back Matter....Pages 201-206 Ivan Boldyrev, Ekaterina Svetlova, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.