political economy

Noun

political economy (countable and uncountable, plural political economies)

1. Interdisciplinary studies drawing upon economics, law, and political science in explaining how political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system—capitalist, socialist, mixed, etc.—influence each other.
   • Arguing for a limit on the power of money, [John Maynard Keynes] was faithful to a long tradition of political economy that was concerned with the balance of interests and the dangers of financial domination.2012 July 8, Maurice Glasman, “We need to talk about Keynes – and his Viagra economics”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC
   • Ten years ago, David Simon's iconic TV series The Wire portrayed contemporary Baltimore as wracked by illegal drug use, violent crime and failing institutions. But underneath the symptoms were the structures of political economy. As the show's tagline had it, "everything is connected".2017 July 20, David Ritter, “Dirty coal to dirty politics: everything is connected through a malformed political economy”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media...

   Synonyms:

   ergonomics

2. (archaic, uncountable) Synonym of economics (“the study of resource and wealth allocation, consumption, and distribution, of capital and investment, and of management of the factors of production”).

   Synonyms:

   economics, dismal science