Political Economy is a broad church. This aspect makes it challenging to teach. One wants to engage all students in the classroom, but the range of students’ interests can vary considerably. Moreover, they demand more in terms of engagement and practicality. It is not enough to recite material for rote learning. How does one fulfill the demand while maintaining integrity of the unit in terms of breadth and depth of theory and method? Political Economy at the University of Sydney has an additional challenge in that students and staff approach facets of the economy – a system of social provisioning, more generally – from different disciplines. Disciplines represented by staff include economics, political science, sociology, and history, among others.
Yes, one can flip the units so that the examples provided to support theory act to stimulate thinking about possible explanations. Then, one can proceed to discuss the relevant theories to solidify students’ understanding. This is a good start for engagement, but beyond flipping what can one do?
Applied Political Economy (APE) is a potentially fruitful approach. APE was introduced by Daniel Underwood for teaching the range of schools of economic thought to students. It consists of four components: the operationalisation of critical thinking, the integration of economic paradigms, a map of cognitive pedagogy, and construction of social reality. The empirical approach provides feedback on students’ understanding of economic processes, and it informs decisions which are imbued with value judgements. The techniques he advocates are statistics and econometrics.
Operationalisation of critical thinking involves a particular definition of what critical thinking is. Critical thinking, generally, pertains to the identification of key concepts and association chains of reasoning, logical structure or applications to obtain insights and conclusions. The information to support and validate this process is obtained through primary or secondary research. Underwood selects a specific definition that lends itself to a particular style of quantitative analysis. Critical thinking for Underwood involves empirically grounded reason.
Underwood’s integration component is inspired by the work of Joseph Schumpeter. It has four objectives. First, individuals need to understand how their experiences shape their values. Values, in turn, are expressed as a vision or how one perceives the (economic) processes to function. Vision is then expressed through method(s) of analysis, and the implications are drawn for policy recommendations. The comparison of the range of economic paradigms helps students comprehend the landscape, allowing them to view where they fit within it. An added benefit is that students come to understand and respect the perspectives of others. This facilitates meaningful discourse and productive debates.
A map of cognitive pedagogy pertains to each student establishing a path through the landscape of economic paradigms. His/her response to an initial question or survey on a particular debate allows the student to identify his/her views (values) and begin to compare his/her values, and vision, with economic paradigms that best represent those. Then, students are exposed to the location of primary and secondary sources of data to substantiate their views. They can also monitor indicators for changes in trends.
And, finally, the social construction of reality enables students to create questions that can be empirically tested. Robust results provide confirmation, or not, of the empirical validity of students’ understanding of their world. Each student confronts the results to refine his/her understanding of economic processes.
Again, Underwood’s APE is designed to address the multitude of economic paradigms and enable students to both engage with them and learn important skills. It is an intradisciplinary approach. Unfortunately, the approach is limited to students who wish to engage with the quantitative skills that are best suited for it. There are a wide range of techniques, besides statistics and econometrics, to garner empirical evidence to support their ideas. Moreover, students who do not wish to learn, or think they can handle challenging material may self-select away from the economics discipline. Those who are turned away may hesitate to return to debate economic issues. There is also the issue of relationships to various disciplines. The intradisciplinary approach still places the discipline of economics at its heart. This is unfair to those who would like to contribute to debates over what influences economic processes but, say, from a sociological, historical, or political perspective.
The political economy staff at the University of Sydney engage with the elements of an intradisciplinary APE to various degrees. Often it depends on the topics of units. For instance, units that pertain to economic development, demographics, cycles and instability, country risk, theoretical applications and policy are more apt to employ components for modelling, data analysis, case studies and empirical training. All attempt to provide a range of viewpoints on the issues of concern. This effort promotes inclusivity, collegiality and respect amongst the student cohorts. In turn, the students effectively engage with members of civil society and public sector and private institutions. Indeed, many find employment in various levels of government, think tanks, non-profit organisations, journalism, marketing and financial sectors.
The units I teach are perhaps the most explicit about the links between vision, analytical reasoning and policy implications, with components for data analysis and empirical training through stand-alone modules. As many of the issues involve dynamics which are slow to evolve, empirical training supports analyses of long-term dynamics. Visualisations and analysis of trends are evaluated, as well as the compositions of cohorts or groups to identify shared features for further examination. The nature of the data implies that the restrictions needed for robust results from applications of econometrics and statistics are not satisfied. Traditional training in econometrics and statistics is possible but limited to their relationship to time series analysis.
For Underwood, social construction of reality is influenced by the results of statistics and econometrics. Robust results are the ones that contribute to the construction. This is unfortunate, as limiting robustness in this way risks the marginalisation of processes of social provisioning that cannot be supported in this way. The interdisciplinary APE captures empirical evidence differently, perhaps revealing questions for which traditional techniques can be applied. The open nature of the APE enables students to explore their world and engage with debates on their terms, with guidance of the academic staff. Robustness pertains to consistency of arguments and chains of reasoning and where choice of data processing is appropriate.
Evidence of effectiveness is supported with unit surveys, student comments, peer reviews of teaching, and links between graduate attributes and learning outcomes (results of assessments), incorporation of techniques by colleagues and professional staff dedicated to keeping teaching practices current and innovative. Unit surveys and student comments suggest students’ experience improved over time. Peer reviews are also supportive of the approach, noting strong links between learning outcomes and unit content, for attaining learning outcomes and graduate attributes.
What about the role of artificial intelligence (AI)? As per Australia’s Tertiary Educational Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA) guidance, students should be savvy with current technology to prepare for the workforce and higher degrees. Artificial intelligence is incorporated to dig deeper into the internet to research material that may have been overlooked with traditional search engines. Summaries can be used as references provided students can create ‘share’ links so that their results of AI searches can be verified. AI also allows students to request feedback on drafts, and language support for students who are not native English speakers. AI can also facilitate learning through role playing, hunting for specific pieces of information and critical evaluation of output. UNESCO has also provided AI competency frameworks for staff and students to retain the human-centred approach to education.
In conclusion, the interdisciplinary APE approach holds merit for widening the range of students to engage with debates over various aspects of the social provisioning process. This effort promotes engaged citizens through inclusion, and collegiality. This is important for how social provisioning occurs in the future. Climate change is teaching us that the quest for unbridled growth is threatening the existence of many species, including humans. Sustainable development will need a wide range of opinions and expertise to consider and solve issues related to social provisioning to provide for human needs within planetary boundaries.
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