ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: “Finding a place for Political Economy in Portugal: 1808-1913”
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Authors: Maria de Fátima Brandão & António Almodovar Abstract: In this paper, we have chosen to address two aspects of the relation between economics and place, dealing with materials that can be explored in some of their relations with a series of places − Portugal, the Parliament seated in Lisbon, the University of Coimbra. By using the concept of place, we intend to highlight the process leading to the choice of a specific place for the study of political economy in Portugal, that is, a space with appropriate institutional meaning (Cresswell 2004), where economic science could be simultaneously “surveyed” (Foucault 1971) and “at home”. In a first section we examine how early-nineteenth-century Portuguese political economists paved the way for the establishment of classes for the study of political economy by asserting its moral, political, and scientific value. In the second section we examine the evidence found in parliamentary debates, concerning the process that ultimately led to the establishment of classes of political economy within law studies. In the third section, we examine how this specific placement impinged upon the scholarly approach to political economy. Bearing in mind the aims envisaged by members of the parliament when they opted in favor of law studies, we will provide evidence on how this specific place actually conditioned the development of political economy in Portugal. In the concluding remarks, we assert that the placement of political economy within law studies contributed to establish an administrative perception of economic science within Portuguese society until the first decades of the twentieth century.
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