Discuss the political economic approach to the comparative analysis of politics. (UPSC CSE Mains 2021 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
Political economy refers to a specific way of understanding social and political phenomena whereby, economics and politics are not seen as separate domains. Adam Smith considered political economy as ''a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator''.
The political economy approach focuses on the issues at the interaction of economy and politics. It analyses the macroeconomic policies of the state. The role played by various political organs like bureaucracy, judiciary, the legislature in the formulation and implementation of such policies. It even studies the tariff structures of state and the influence of domestic and international factors in determining these.
The political economy approach is widely used. It has the advantage of being quantitative as well as prescriptive. There are also a lot of variations in political economy. While liberal scholars like Adam Smith support the laissez-faire model of the economy, Marxist scholars suggest common ownership of means of production.
The modernisation, underdevelopment and dependency, world systems, articulation of the modes of production, class analysis, state-centred analysis and the neoliberal analysis are dominant among the various explanatory frameworks which have emerged in the last few decades. While, the analytical tools of all these frameworks have varied, almost all have ''development'' as their key problem. The process of exploring this problem within a comparative perspective, they have, inevitably seen the world in terms of a hierarchised whole. They do, however, provide important insights into the intricacies of economic forces and the manner in a symbiosis of economy and polity works within and in connection with external forces.
The disadvantage of the political economy approach is that it focuses only on economics and hence cannot be used alone. It should be used with other approaches for broader and better understanding.
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