BOOK DISCUSSION WITH AUTHOR OLIMPIA MALATESTA & INSTITUTE DIRECTOR SAMIR GANDESHA
Note: Light snacks will be provided.
ABOUT THE BOOK
"Ordoliberalism, State and Society: A Political Theory of Social Order" provides a new interpretation of ordoliberalism – the influential German version of neoliberalism – by exploring the political, legal and social context of its emergence.
Ordoliberal scholars regarded sociology, juridical science and economics as concrete policy-making instruments designed to discipline the structural conflicts of modern society. For, in their view, society should not impinge on the economy. Ordoliberalism is here presented as a political theory of social order, developing out of the crisis of the Weimar Republic and which has proven to be one of the most influential neoliberal accounts of social organization after WWII. Assessing the influence that leading German intellectuals such as Sombart, Schmoller, Savigny and Schmitt have exerted on ordoliberalism, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the social, legal and political theory of Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, Alfred Müller-Armack, Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow. In so doing, the book offers an invaluable study of the ideological roots of the notion of an economic constitution and a political–theoretical analysis of one of the first articulations of authoritarian liberalism at the European level.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Olimpia Malatesta is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in History of Political Thought at the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna. Her research deals with ordoliberalism (Eucken, Röpke, Müller-Armack, Rüstow, Böhm) and its relations with German sociology (Sombart, Schmoller), Austrian neoliberalism (Hayek) and authoritarian liberalism, with a special focus on the conservative revolution (Schmitt) and the Weimar Republic. In February 2025 she will start a Marie Sklodowska Curie Global postdoctoral project between Boston University, Brunel University London and the University of Bologna entitled “Ecological Planning and Economic Rationalities: Political and Epistemological Theories in the Age of Polycrisis” which deals with the theory of planning of Hayek, Mises, Neurath and Polanyi.
She completed her PhD in cotutelle between the University of Bologna and the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. She was research fellow at the University of Milano Bicocca and visiting fellow at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and at Université Paris Nanterre. Her first monograph titled Ordoliberalism, State and Society. A Political Theory of Social Order (Routledge) was published in 2025.
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