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Podcast: New Books in American Politics
Episode: Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Description: Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark Pennington
This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault from within the tradition of liberal political economy. Divided into two parts the book commences by demonstrating important commonalities between Foucault's ideas and those of a neglected 'post-modern' stream in liberal political and economic thought. These ideas draw on a social theory emphasising a culturally situated individualism; a philosophy of science highly critical of socio-economic 'scientism' and 'expert rule'; and an understanding of...