Enter Economism, Exit Politics: Experts, Economic Policy and the Damage to Democracy

All over the world, public participation in democratic politics is declining sharply. Why and how has democracy come to be undermined in this way? First, neo-liberal ideologists have successfully persuaded people that economic considerations take first priority and are neutral, technical matters outside the realms of politics and democratic control. Second, national sovereignty, particularly over economic and fiscal strategy, has been placed into the hands of external institutions - notably the IMF and the US government. Teivo Teivainen explores this redefinition of the boundaries of the economic and the political spheres. Drawing on the example of the Latin American debt crisis and, in particular, Peru, he reflects on the tendency in the world at large and suggests how the adverse consequences for democratic institutions might be reversed in future.