Call for papers - Political economy beyond political economists
Political economy beyond political economists: understanding political economy in action (1700-1850)
21-22 May 2026, University of Geneva
Between the end of the XVIIth century and the middle of the XIXth century, mounting interimperial rivalries and major economic changes (i.e., the industrial revolution) intertwined with a growing formalization of scientific knowledge and, more specifically, the emergence of political economy. Adam Smith famously characterised political economy as “a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator” that aims “to enrich both the people and the sovereign” . However, the role of economists and the subject of their study were still very much undefined at the time. On the one hand, economics as a distinct academic discipline had yet to emerge, and the boundaries with other fields of knowledge such as moral philosophy (Heilbron, 1998; Hirschman, 2013), natural sciences (Schabas, 2007) or political theology (Hill, 2001) were unclear. On the other hand, discussions of provocative ideas about the origins of wealth, the regulation of markets and freedom of trade were not restricted to closed intellectual circles. As Kaplan & Reinert (2019, p. 16) contended, the “economic turn” experienced by European societies of the core of the Enlightenment was a pervasive phenomenon, with economic idiom gradually becoming “at once the object of one’s action and the tool-kit with which to deal with it”. The perception of such a shift appears to have been widely shared across the social spectrum, as evidenced for instance by the growing prominence of economic themes in the arts, particularly in literature and theatre (Poirson, 2004 ; Citton, 2022).
Even though most of early economic debate took place beyond elite intellectual and political spheres, this significant yet elusive portion of economic thinking has largely escaped the attention of conventional histories of political economy . It is only in recent years that a growing stream of research centred on the early development of political economy has examined the emergence of economic discourse beyond the scope of prominent figures who came to define the trajectories of modern economic debates. Some scholars have focused on specific topics such as machines (Berg, 1982; Jarrige, 2021), luxury (Berg & Eger, 2003; Carnino, 2014; Monestarolo, 2009; Shovlin, 2006), poverty (Fontaine, 2022; O’Flaherty & Mills, 2024) and commerce (Cheney, 2010) to understand how values and judgments about economic issues circulated between the upper and lower strata of society. Furthermore, following Kaplan’s (1976) seminal work on bread, several scholars have focussed on commodities such as cotton (O’Brien et al., 1991), wool (Hoppit, 2017), linen (O’Sullivan, 2024), fish (Sargeant, 2024) and industrial food (Spary, 2014) to offer a granular analysis of the deployment of economic policies and regulation in different contexts. Other researchers have turned their attention on the arguments of overlooked actors, such as “alter-economists” (Kaplan & Reinert, 2019 ; Klotz, Minard & Orain, 2022) patriotic societies (Stapelbroek & Marjanen, 2012), low-level state officials (Minard, 1998), artisans, (Bertucci, 2018) scientists and mechanics (Maddaluno, 2024) who attempted to mould economic theories into material reality. Finally, other contributions have examined the process of constructing economic legislation, shedding new light on the progressive affirmation of free trade and laissez faire discourses. Hirsch (1991) and Horn (2015) have shown how merchants, artisans and manufacturers appropriated the growing “language of liberty” in France to frame their economic demands towards political powers. Similarly, through a comprehensive analysis of British acts of parliament, Hoppit (2017) highlights the fact that a wide range of actors far beyond the political elite played a pivotal role in shaping the “political economies” of the British Empire.
The workshop is organised by Dr. Lorenzo Avellino (The Fabric of Profit – University of Geneva) and Dr. Jean-Baptiste Vérot (Centre Lucien Febvre – Université Marie et Louis Pasteur). It is supported by the SNSF-funded project 'The Fabric of Profit', which aims to bridge the gap between economic discourses and practices in the study of the history of capitalism between 1750 and 1850 by focussing on the European textile complex in global perspective. Inspired by recent developments in historical research on political economy and economic history, the project analyses the changing economic practices that generated profit in this crucial century and explores economic discourses about profits in the widespread and persistent discussions about the political economies of textiles that marked this period. It is sponsoring this workshop in the hope of bringing together historians who are working on the nexus between economic discourses and material practices in science, government, trade, manufacturing and agriculture. Studying political economy in action will generate insights into the concepts seen as relevant for understanding the material, including economic, realities of different times and places, and suggest what types of economic discourses played a role in reshaping economic and social practices.
Although open to other possibilities, the workshop organisers are especially interested in inviting contributions that will seek:
1. To delineate the “economic turn” through the diversity of its reception. This may involve examining the place of economic texts within practices related to the ownership and uses of printed texts—for instance, through the study of probate inventories, library catalogues, or readers’ handwritten annotations. In the same perspective, another path of inquiry could focus on the “popular” markets for economic print to investigate the editorial strategies that shaped them, the representations of readership on which they relied, as well as the new ways of reading (economic) texts that they may have fostered. Conversely, attention will also be paid to situations in which the grafting of economic concepts fails to take hold, as suggested by certain critical discourses on emerging ‘economism’.
2. To consider neglected actors who intervened in this emerging field of political economy. Beyond the ‘alter-economists’ who opposed physiocracy and whose role has been the focus of recent research, the aim is to study less known actors who engaged with economic arguments. Contributions that highlighted economic arguments can be found, for instance, in judicial and administrative sources, articles in periodicals, petitions, technical manuals, patents, memoranda that proposed economic projects, written objections to economic measures, submissions to competitions held by learned societies. These sources should make it possible to better identify the limits of the economic turn by examining both the social backgrounds of these overlooked actors and the modes and strategies through which they intervened in the field.
3. To focus on connections fostered by the “economic turn” between the world of social, political and economic elites including political leaders, high-level government officials, prominent intellectuals and learned institutions and the worlds of practitioners including artisans, farmers, and merchants. Such an approach should make it possible to bring to light what specific arguments in political economy owed to a complex process of collaboration, as well as how collective knowledge derived from practical experience was appropriated and formalised. Furthermore, it may offer hints to the economic implications of the sectoral uses of political economy’s concepts beyond their emerging disciplinary boundaries.
The workshop will be held at the University of Geneva. It will start with a keynote on 21 May 2026 at 18:00 GMT followed by panel sessions throughout the day on 22 May 2026 and ending at 16:30 that evening.
The organisers will cover travel expenses and accommodation for participants.
Proposals, which should take the form of a 300–500-word abstract accompanied by a short biographical note about the author, should be sent to and . The deadline for submissions is February 15th, 2026.
CITED WORKS
Berg, M. (1982). The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy. Cambridge University Press.
Berg, M., & Eger, E. (2003). Luxury in the Eighteenth-Century : Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bertucci, P. (2018). Artisanal Enlightenment : Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France. Yale University Press.
Carnino, C. (2014). From Luxury to Consumption in Eighteenth-Century Europe : The Importance of Italian Thought in History and Historiography. History of European Ideas, 40(2), 218‑244.
Cheney, P. (2010). Revolutionary Commerce : Globalization and the French Monarchy. Harvard University Press.
Citton Y. (2022). Altermodernités des Lumières. Seuil.
Fontaine, L. (2022). Vivre pauvre. Quelques enseignements tirés de l’Europe des Lumières. Gallimard.
Heilbron, J. (1998). French Moralists and the Anthropology of the Modern Era : On the Genesis of the Notions of ‘Interest’ and ‘Commercial Society’. In J.
Heilbron, L. Magnusson, & B. Wittrock (Éds.), The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity : Conceptual Change in Context, 1750–1850 (p. 77‑106). Springer Netherlands.
Hill, L. (2001). The hidden theology of Adam Smith. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 8(1), 1‑29.
Hirsch, J.-P. (1991). Les deux rêves du commerce : Entreprise et institution dans la région lilloise, 1780-1860. Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales.
Hirschman, A. O. (2013). The Passions and the Interests : Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph. Princeton University Press [1st edition 1977]
Hoppit, J. (2017). Britain’s Political Economies : Parliament and Economic Life, 1660–1800. Cambridge University Press.
Horn, J. (2015). Economic Development in Early Modern France : The Privilege of Liberty, 1650–1820. Cambridge University Press.
Jarrige, F. (2021). La question des machines, le travail et les savoirs au XIXe siècle. Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines, 13, 281-315.
Kaplan, S. L. (1976). Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV. Springer Netherlands.
Kaplan, S. L., & Reinert, S. A. (2019). The Economic Turn in Enlightenment Europe. In S. L. Kaplan & S. A. Reinert (Éds.), The Economic Turn. Recasting Political Economy in Enlightenment Europe (p. 1‑34). Anthem Press.
Klotz, G., Minard, P. & Orain A. (Éds.) (2017). Les voies de la richesse ? : La physiocratie en question (1760-1850). Presses universitaires de Rennes.
Maddaluno, L. (2024). Science and political economy in enlightenment Milan, 1760-1805. University Press on behalf of Voltaire Foundation.
Minard, P. (1998). La fortune du colbertisme : Etat et industrie dans la France des Lumières. Fayard.
Monestarolo, G. (2009). L’armonia impossibile : Il dibattito sul lusso in Piemonte fra pubblica felicità e politica degli interessi. In A. Alimento (Éd.), Modelli d’oltre confine : Prospettive economiche e sociali negli antichi stati italiani (p. 221‑238). Edizioni di storia e letteratura.
O’Brien, P., Griffiths, T., & Hunt, P. (1991). Political Components of the Industrial Revolution : Parliament and the English Cotton Textile Industry, 1660-1774. The Economic History Review, 44(3), 395‑423.
O’Flaherty, N., & Mills, R. (Éds.). (2024). Ideas of poverty in the Age of Enlightenment. Manchester University Press.
O’Sullivan, M. (2024). Ireland’s Role in British Colonial Capitalism : “Men of Capitals” and Pitt’s Irish Proposals, 1784–1785. Business History Review, 98(1), 119‑163.
Poirson M. (ed.) (2004). Art et argent en France au temps des Premiers Modernes (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles). Voltaire Foundation.
Sargeant, J. D. (2024). Fishing, Freedom, and the Market in Early Modern London. History Workshop Journal, 97, 77‑101.
Schabas, M. (2007). The Natural Origins of Economics. University of Chicago Press.
Shovlin, J. (2006). The Political Economy of Virtue : Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution, Cornell University Press.
Spary, E. C. (2014). Feeding France : New Sciences of Food, 1760–1815. Cambridge University Press.
Stapelbroek, K., & Marjanen, J. (Éds.). (2012). The Rise of Economic Societies in the Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
FOOTNOTES
1 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. II, Oliphantm Waugh & Inees, 1817 [1776], p. 142.
2 Jean-Claude Perrot (1992, p. 9), building on the extensive bibliography of French political economy established by Christine Théré, argued at the beginning of the 1990s that for the last 200 years the history of economic thought have focused on no more than 10% of ancient economic texts.
3 The Fabric of Profit research project with Professor Mary O’Sullivan as principal investigator is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation under its Advanced Grant scheme (project number TMAG-1_209310/1). It is based at the University of Geneva’s Paul Bairoch Institute of Economic History, directed by Professor Pilar Nogues-Marco.
Jan 17, 2025