Research Interests | Louise Haagh

Louise Haagh, Debate at Cambridge Union (2018): source

Institutional Political Economy, Development Ethics, and Democratisation

I have worked or done research on the comparative political economy of development in several countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, East Asia, and Europe. I am interested institutional foundations for inclusive and sustainable growth, and the comparative historical study of development, from both a political and ethical perspective.

My main interest is in how formalisation of generic cooperative problems shapes political development, social conditions for freedom, and the economy. In recent publications I have explored how constraints of human economy act as a constraint on governance at the level of the polity, including in Haagh, L. “Welfare-as-Freedom, The Human Economy, and Varieties of capitalist state” in economic policies for a post neoliberal world, eds Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, (eds.) London: Palgrave, 2021. in a forthcoming book I elaborate this problem in terms of a new constructive ethics and economics.

Establishing social conditions for freedom presupposes cooperation and in cooperation a form of purposeful humanity. I am interested in how this kind of cooperation arises and is formalised. Do good institutions in this sense arise without design, from certain prior conditions, for instance generating cooperation out of necessity? This problem for example has motivated my interest in Nordic welfare states, their evolution, history and function (2001, 2011b,Basic Income, Social Democracy and Control over Time,” 2012, 2015, 2018,The Developmental Social Contract and Basic Income in Denmark

2019b; The Case for Universal Basic Income,). How can today’s society learn from the past? I ask these questions in different pieces of work on the regulatory foundations for freedom (2002a, 2007a, 2018b, 2019b), and in the study of how cooperative forms of public finance evolve (2012, Democracy, Public Finance, and Property Rights in Economic Stability: How More Horizontal Capitalism Upscales Freedom for All,” 2015). Where do the values of freedom and equality come from? To what extent are they socially bound or/and recurrent? What is the role of education and shared knowledge in democratic development (2002a, 2015)? In applied work I have examined when representation enhances skills-led economic development, and informal bargaining and dispersal of private skills regimes weakens it (1999, Training Policy and the Property Rights of Labour in Chile: Social Citizenship in the Atomised Market Regime,” 2002a,c).The same concern with public capability has motivated my study of how developmental states recover from financial crises (2004a), and the question when and why barriers to democratic development persist, or/and substantive aspects of democracy corrode (2001,

“The Emperor’s New Clothes - Labour Reform and Social Democratisation in Chile2002a,c; 2004b 2019a,b). I have recently applied this to look at the connection between economic populism and the acceleration of long-term governance corrosion after the 2007 global financial crisis (2018b, 2019c).

Besides my work on democratisation, I am interested to better understand the meaning of the concept of freedom, in particular freedom as a state of intrinsic well-being within human experience, and the connection of freedom in this sense with equality (2007a“Developmental Freedom and Social Order – Rethinking the Relation between Work and Equality). In this context, It is necessary to conceptualise how some inequalities may be inevitable or even indirectly functional for other forms of equality. For example, a society that ensures against developmental risks cannot allocate resources equally. Hence, I think that only by looking at developmental conditions of being human can we get nearer to understanding the value of different dimensions of equality and the role of social cooperation and human empathy in relation to freedom. This perspective informs the substance of my work on basic income and human development, and the normative foundations of welfare (2002a, 2015, “Alternative Social States and the Basic Income Debate: Institutions, Inequality and Human Development,2019a). Incidentally, I am interested in the reasons why traditions of Anglo-liberal and continental European thought conceive of freedom in society differently, and said traditions of thought are reproduced through law and public policy. A recent essay which explores social conditions behind schools of thought is, Haagh, L., “From Freedom to Finance – How Development Conditions Frame the Basic Income Debate” in The Intellectual History of Basic Income, Pedro. R. Pinto, Peter Sloman, Daniel Zamora (Eds.) London: Palgrave, 2021

Given my interests, my work is necessarily interdisciplinary. I use the comparative historical study of institutions and systems’ function, political and economic theory, statistics, and psychology and other fields of study in human development to explore specific problems. I have a particular interest in methodology and the link between concept, policy, and measurement: how do measures of things we have inherited alter our conception of new political problems, and block us from conceiving alternatives? Why for example do we think insecurity is important for productivity? The concept of wellbeing also changes depending on how we attach it to human experience and evidence. I see the role of academics as challenging conventional measures in the reproduction of knowledge and models of development. In my work, I have explored new developmental measures of freedom and tried to tease out what the governance implications are by looking at the role of different stable settings in shaping human experience (2007a, 2011aWorking Life, Well-Being and Welfare Reform: Motivation and Institutions Revisited). A key problem now shaping production through targeting competitive outcomes is the value this creates around the speed of competitive processes and striving against the functionality of discerning, guarding and valuing things which competitive targets miss out (2019a). I have discussed this problem in connection with consequences for wellbeing and society of how education is organised (2012). Our concept of tackling and preventing coercion in society also depends a lot on whether and how we consider the social roots of crime and society’s duty to protect. I am also interested in how far public law can protects citizen in the context of shifting government policies, in particular when states are under global economic pressure (2002,c, 2019a).

Below are topics under the broad heading of democratisation that I have covered in my books and articles

A lot of my work has evolved around the political nature of development, and around critique of the assumption of neutrality in economics and areas of liberal political theory. If there are areas of life that should not be regulated it is not because development choices are neutral – e.g. such as the market produces equilibrium - but because it is valuable to leave many aspects of social life to chance and choice. Hence, for me, academia should strive to render visible the social consequence of development choices, so that regulatory choices can be refined and revised. Relatedly, I am interested in the connection between development narratives and alternative public policy responses to problems. I am also interested in the political foundations of development planning – including the alternative form and success it has - across time and different societies (2018aHandbook of Development Ethics). I have argued that economic stability is essential for a good life, and therefore it is also a problem for social justice, and explored some of the analytical consequences (2012). Recently, I have become more interested in the ethics of evidence-based public policy. I critically assess why some forms of policy are subject to moral hazard assumptions – e.g. such as why implementing unconditional income security is presumed to generate laziness – whilst others are not (2007b, 2011a, 2019a The Case for Universal Basic Income,). I am sceptical of the growing tendency to individualise responsibility for development outcomes, whether in academia or public policy models, on grounds it leaves too many other factors out. In my survey work on how institutions shape development outcomes, I have critiqued the tendency to measure market behaviour, to focus instead on how different forms of security and opportunity shape individuals’ inner life, their motivation, well-being and senses of purpose and planning (2011a).

I am interested in how institutions we create shape the well-being of individuals and groups.

Adopting a heterodox economics approach, I have used surveys to try to understand how alternative institutions of work shape economic performance, and to gauge the relationship between transparent information about work processes and investment decisions (1999, 2002aLabour Relations and Investment in Workers).

I have looked at how alternative economic security sets shape the control individuals have of their lives (2006b, 2008, Decent Work and Unemployment,2011a) I have also written about how arranging certain frames of time for work and care collectively generates overall control of time for individuals by relieving the burden of informal negotiation (2007a, 2011b). Relatedly, I have looked at how and when macro-configurations such as welfare systems support or not a form of institutions that enable control over daily and long-term, core human activities and social relations (2007, 2012).

There is an excellent literature on foundations and function of alternative capitalist systems. This body off work rightly focusses on industrial relations systems as expressive of variation between states. I have broadened the field of comparison by looking at the incidental role of state formation and public sector development (2012, 2015, 2018c, 2019aInternational Journal of Public Policy), and by considering human development when looking at ‘outcomes’ of the way different capitalist systems function. As a sub-set of this wider interest, in my D.Phil and British Academic Post-Doctoral fellowship I looked at macro-foundations for occupational citizenship, which I conceptualised as a public committed to supporting the occupational life of individuals (2002aCitizenship, Labour Markets and Democratization: Chile and the Modern Sequence,). I argued this kind of public rests on a high level of democratic development of the economy. You can gauge this commitment as being embedded in the institutions of some welfare states. Conversely, I have examined how extensive marketization of economic and production processes unravel governance needed to support this civilised state (1999, 2019a).

The comparison of welfare states is central to most of my work. In the literature, the study of welfare state types is rightly connected with the shape and outcomes of industrial conflicts. However, I think much is gained by broadening the focus to look at the role and form of the state, in particular in relation to the formalisation of economic life, law, and public finance and services. This approach is embedded in a number of my writings on especially mature welfare states (2011, 2012, 2015, 2018). I am critical of the narrowing of the conceptualisation of welfare to anti-poverty policy (2007b Basic Income, Occupational Freedom and Antipoverty Policy) on grounds it obscures underlying conditions for shared welfare and social equality. I have organised or participated in a series of collections on welfare states and policy in the Global South (2006a“Equality and Income Security in Market Economies: What’s Wrong with Insurance?), East Asia (2004a), the Americas (2004b), and Europe (2019b). In my work on welfare in development, I have collaborated with a number of organisations including the American Political Science Association (2013a), Council of Europe (2013b), World Bank (2001), Organisation of American States, and the International Health Organisation (gastein forum talk). I have also given witness to public enquiries and informed the debate within a number of think tanks and political parties (link BI page), considering how economic security institutions can be recrafted.

I have studied how sequences of economic and political development shape the level of depth of democratic development – for example how and when political rights extend to social and economic rights systemically (2002aCitizenship, Labour Markets and Democratization: Chile and the Modern Sequence). Using a comparative macro-configurational framework, I extended this approach in collaboration with Maria-Lorena Cook from Cornell University (2005). I have looked at how ideational projects pursued by states can become path dependent and block economic democratisation – as in the case of Chile (2014b, 2001b. 2004Learning from Foreign Modelsin Latin American Policy Reform,). More recently I have been interested in the concept of public ownership, specifically the relation between the orientation of public regulation and the democratisation of society, and key freedoms individuals enjoy (2019a).

I have always been fascinated with the apparent contradiction between the concept of care in welfare policy and the implications of privatisation and marketization of welfare services. I organised a collection of papers on this for a special issue of Social Policy and Administration in 2006, and in 2002(bSocial Policy Reform and Market Governance in Latin America,) produced an edited volume (with Camilla Helgø) on social policy reform and market governance in Latin America, the first continent to pursue marketization systemically. Since I have worked on this topic by comparing mature welfare states (2011b, 2012, 2015, 2019a). I have also contributed to a range of collections in this area, in the context of South Korea (edited by Ha-Joon Chang and Ed Amann, 2004aBrazil and South Korea: Economic Crisis and Restructuring,), Latin America (edited by Ruben lo Vuolo, 2014), and Europe (edited by Sedmark, 2008). The relationship between marketization and governance breakdown is central to my work on basic income (see tap).

I am interested in understanding implications that follow from how the concept of equality is defined – and what it is referenced to - e.g resources, or something about the process of life itself. I don’t think equality in resources is all that useful as an expression of what justice requires, especially if the idea is to use strict egalitarian distribution as a way to reduce the sphere of the public. Nevertheless, equality in resources remains a useful reference point in connection with other meanings and measures of equality. E.g. there are good reasons why inequality of resources should not be too large, because of the implications for inequality in opportunities, power, and social relations, and ultimately the viability of civilised politics and democracy. I write about this in (2012, 2013,Redefining and Combating Poverty: Human rights, democracy and common goods in today’s Europe2015, 2018b, and 2019a). I am also interested in what equal standing entails between persons with different needs, interests and levels of dependence. I think when equality is expressed in developmental dimensions, it is possible to discover a value of equal humanity that can foster not merely mutual concern but respect between persons with different capabilities and vulnerabilities at points in time (2019a). However, this substantively richer sense of mutual recognition is not easy to foster at the level of society. This leads me to use tools of heterodox economics to understand how conflicts are reduced and more substantive forms of equal standing and individual expression are fostered in the context of hybrid property in institutions of educational, occupation, and care (2012).