Question

describe the usefulness and limitations of the political economy approach in the study of comparative politics. 500 words

Answer 1

Political economy is the study of productionand trade and their relations with law, custom and government as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth. Political economy as a discipline originated in moral philosophy in the 18th century and sought to explore the administration of states' wealth, with or "household management". The earliest works of political economy are most often attributed to British scholars like Adam Smith, Thomas Malthusand David Ricardo, although the case is sometimes made that the still earlier works of the French physiocrats constitute the true beginnings of the discipline.

In the late 19th century, the term "economics" gradually began to replace the term "political economy" with the rise of mathematical modelling coinciding with the publication of an influential textbook by Alfred Marshall in 1890.[1] Earlier, William Stanley Jevons, a proponent of mathematical methods applied to the subject, advocated economics for brevity and with the hope of the term becoming "the recognised name of a science".Citation measurement metrics from Google Ngram Viewer indicate that use of the term "economics" began to overshadow "political economy" around roughly 1910, becoming the preferred term for the discipline by 1920.[4] Today, the term "economics" usually refers to the narrow study of the economy absent other political and social considerations while the term "political economy" represents a distinct and competing approach.