The Changing Practices of Managing Uncertainty and Risk in Post War British Political Economy
: Investments, Insurance, Pensions and Professional Risk Managers c. 1945-1995

  • Thomas J Gould

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

This thesis argues that the ways uncertainty, risk and expertise were understood, created, embraced, and managed were important factors that influenced the way in which Britain transitioned away from social democracy and towards market liberalism. Whereas narratives of that transition have traditionally focused on government economic policy, the waning influence of Keynesianism and rise of neoliberalism, or the politics of Thatcherism, this thesis demonstrates that mainstream economic thought, politics and the public policy reform agenda of successive Thatcher governments are only partly responsible for the changes that took place in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. Away from Westminster politics and mainstream economic debates, there were important changes in the nature of economic expertise and the science of financial risk management, and there were parallel, significant developments happening on the frontiers of financial services in the areas of investment, insurance, and pensions. Within debates about the status of economics as science, on the frontlines of financial services, and in the back offices of financial firms, the expertise of economic and financial risk management altered in ways that helped make possible the individualisation, marketisation and financialisation that are so commonly equated with the changing political and economic landscape of post war Britain. In important ways, then, the ability to manage financial uncertainty and risk on the individual level, and increasingly through financial markets, helped to implement and consolidate the ascent of market liberalism in the wider realm of economic ideas and politics. To understand the role of neoliberalism and Thatcherism in the growth of a market liberal political economy and the impact of each on Britain, we need to see those intellectual and political projects as acting in the context of changing ways of managing financial uncertainty and risk outside Whitehall and at a level beneath macroeconomics.
Date of Award22 Mar 2022
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Bristol
SupervisorHugh Pemberton (Supervisor) & James Freeman (Supervisor)

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