Book Reviews by Sean Irving
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Global Perspectives, 2024
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Global Intellectual History, 2021
Despite his significant influence, the work of James M. Buchanan has been largely absent from the fi... more Despite his significant influence, the work of James M. Buchanan has been largely absent from the field of intellectual history and from recent attempts by historians to establish the intellectual origin of neoliberalism. The article explores the nature of Buchanan’sintellectual project by focusing on the relationship of his thought to the ‘Italian tradition’, which he encountered during his year in Italy as a Fulbright Fellow. It is a tradition that encompasses both classical works of public finance and the ‘elite theory’ associated with Pareto and Mosca. An awareness of the importance of this Italian year helps us to reframe Buchanan’s intellectual development. Furthermore, while he strove to exclude analyses of socioeconomic power from his work, its proximity to a tradition in which this was a core concern throws into relief the points at which he chose not to pursue such considerations, forcing us to ask why. This article provides an answer. It concludes that, despite his efforts, Buchanan was forced to confront the reality of private power, as can be seen in his proposals for a confiscatory rate of inheritance tax. A response is also made to the controversy associated with Nancy MacLean’s recent work on Buchanan
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History of European Ideas, 2018
This article shows how Hayek's understanding of 'unlimited democracy' was influenced by the work ... more This article shows how Hayek's understanding of 'unlimited democracy' was influenced by the work of Carl Schmitt. It goes on to make the case that ordoliberal ideas informed his suggestions for limiting democracy, made in response to Schmitt's work. A number of authors have drawn attention to the influence of Schmitt on Hayek's thought. Similarly, the ordoliberal relationship has been explored. However, these two influences must be read alongside each other in order to arrive at a full understanding of Hayek's deep ambivalence towards democracy and how that developed from the 1930s through to the 1970s. Finally, the article makes the case that the decisive influence on Hayek's later authoritarian turn was not the work of Schmitt, as certain authors have argued, but ordoliberal interpretations of dictatorship. It also argues that Hayek's model constitution is informed by fundamental ordoliberal concerns.
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Modern Intelelctual History, 2024
This article contributes to an understanding of postimperial civilizational thinking within Briti... more This article contributes to an understanding of postimperial civilizational thinking within British conservatism by engaging with the work of Kenneth Minogue, an understudied but important thinker. Minogue played a key role in reframing an older discourse, centred on empire, in the register of free-market economics and global "competitiveness." During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a significant figure on the New Right, critiquing university radicalism, feminism, and multiculturalism. During the 1990s his thought took a civilizational turn, and he condemned the liberal projects of political elites for undermining the West's traditional competitive ethos. The bureaucracy of the European Union and the economic rise of East Asian "state societies" were particular concerns for Minogue and led him to champion the concept of the Anglosphere as a distinct civilization.
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European Journal of Political Theory, 2020
This article argues that Hayek employed a neo-Roman concept of liberty. It will show that Hayek's... more This article argues that Hayek employed a neo-Roman concept of liberty. It will show that Hayek's definition of liberty conforms to that provided by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner, respectively the chief theorist and leading historian of the neo-Roman concept. It will go on to demonstrate how the genealogy of liberty Hayek provides is also the same as that offered by Pettit and Skinner. This is important, as the neo-Roman concept is not regarded, either by Hayek or by neo-republicans led by Pettit, as a product of political theory. Instead it is viewed as underpinning a historical tradition. Hayek's selfconscious association with this tradition reinforces the article's prior claim that Hayek's conceptual writing on liberty is neo-Roman. Finally, the article considers how the neo-Roman nature of Hayek's work complicates the historical narrative and political claims the neo-republicans make for the neo-Roman concept. It concludes that it is open to use by another, very different, political tradition: free market liberalism.
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Global Perspectives, 2024
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Books by Sean Irving
Friedrich Hayek was the 20th century's most significant free market theorist and over the course ... more Friedrich Hayek was the 20th century's most significant free market theorist and over the course of his long career he developed an analysis of the danger that state power can pose to individual liberty. In rejecting much of the liberal tradition's concern for social justice and democratic participation, Hayek would help clear away many intellectual obstacles to the emergence of neoliberalism in the last quarter of the 20th century. At the core of this book is a new interpretation of Hayek, one that regards him as an exponent of a neo-Roman conception of liberty and interprets his work as a form of 'market republicanism'. It examines the contemporary context in which Hayek wrote, and places his writing in the long republican intellectual tradition. Hayek's Market Republicanism will be of interest to advanced students and researchers across the history of economic thought, the history of political thought, political economy and political philosophy.
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Book Reviews by Sean Irving
Conference Presentations by Sean Irving
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Books by Sean Irving