Dr Sean Irving
Lecturer in Modern British History
Email: s.irving@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: Arts Two 3.04
Profile
I am a historian of political economy. I am particularly interested in how republican ideas have informed economic thought. I seek to recover and develop an economic republicanism that looks beyond the binaries of economic planning versus market competition. In my first monograph and related articles, I put forth a new interpretation of Hayek as a market republican employing the neo-Roman conception of liberty. In my current book project, Between Bosses and Bureaucrats: The Lost Tradition of Republican Political Economy, I show how republican ideas informed an anti-oligarchic strand of political economy over the 19th century. In addition to tracing this strand of thought, the book makes a theoretical contribution by placing these ideas within the republican conceptual framework of the mixed constitution. My analysis focuses specifically on issues of land and the environment, finance, welfare, and gender equality. I have plans to develop individual research projects in these areas, employing my framework of economic republicanism.