Towards a Swiss Army Knife State? The changing face of economic interventionism in advanced democracies, 1980-2015

Abstract: This article systematically reviews trends in numerous economic policy indicators in eighteen OECD countries since the early 1980s, synthesizing findings about the fate of states' economic interventionism from several customarily separate literatures. Rather than observing any paradigmatic policy shift, the review finds that policies with markedly different ideational foundations currently cohabitate. In line with non-interventionist prescriptions, policymakers have largely abandoned the intrusive heterodox 'power tools' of previous eras, while establishing new norms for monetary policy based on monetarist theory. However, this has not led to a full retreat of economic interventionism. Instead, policymakers are gradually developing a new, albeit more constrained, approach to promoting economic activity in line with selected distributional goals - here labelled the micro-interventionist state, or the ‘Swiss Army Knife State', as it were. The cross-partisan appeal of the ‘multi-tools

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Review of International Political Economy ; 29 (2022) 2 ; 477-501

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2022
• Creator: Cronert, Axel

Further information

• DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1814843
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-83048-8
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:48 PM CET