Interdisciplinarity of Economics: Heterodoxies and Orthodoxies

What is it about?

The intention of the article is to explore trends in economics and sociology, as well as other science disciplines, like history, psychology and anthropology, and investigate the interdisciplinary exchanges that have taken place, leading to convergences and divergences between academic subjects. The “imperialism of economics” (Granovetter, Lazear) is increasingly approaching traditional academic fields of history, psychology, and sociology. However, the article concludes that sociology’s public reputation may have declined, while simultaneously economics is shifting its attention to the social dimension of economic behavior and moving toward the other social sciences; a process which has been coined “social-scienciation.” The argument is that those developments can also be seen as chances to upgrade the social sciences “around” economics. The described process also aligns with recent talk about a need for interdisciplinary studies when this article adopts a different take on the issues of interdisciplinarity and embeddedness. Central message of the article is that we are experiencing an increased social-scientification of economics.

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Why is it important?

The article is important to learn to know an academic discipline within its conturs of academic framing and change. From where is economics coming, and where is it seemingly going to ? Central message of the article is that we are experiencing an increased social-scientification of economics which has considerable implications for the organization and landscape of social and economic sciences.