Four theories of public policy making and fast breeder reactor development

Abstract

The recent revival of the discipline of political economy challenges purely economic explanations of economic growth, technological innovation, and sectoral change. This approach recognizes that political actors, institutions, and strategies to organize the economic process together shape the economic development of industrial societies. Whereas economists have emphasized determinants of growth such as savings and investment rates, degrees of domestic and international competition in an industry, or the supply of labor, the new political economists view the political definition of property rights, the nature of state intervention in the economy, the resources of politically mobilized groups, and political actors' belief systems as critical determinants of economic transformations. Both economists and political economists, however, share the assumption that actors are rational; they pursue their interests in a calculated manner within a given system of institutional constraints.