Commentary: the perils and promise of inter-paradigmatic dialogues on remunicipalisation

ABSTRACT

Many epistemological perils of inter-paradigmatic dialogues originate from the ontological divides between schools of thought. Seeing through these cultural barriers does however offer the promise of inter-paradigmatic learning. This paper aims to suggest some basic conditions for seizing the learning opportunities that come from the competition, emulation, assimilation and regeneration of ideas across paradigms. It does so by looking at the case of the incipient dialogue between the heterodox and neoinstitutional traditions of remunicipalisation. These traditions diverge over the nature and societal implications of remunicipalisation as reverse privatisation. We thus identify three fundamental attributes of fruitful inter-paradigmatic dialogues: reflexivity as subjective predisposition to critical and self-critical inquiry within and across schools of thought; immanent critique as inquiry of the consistency between the beliefs and intentions held by the members of a school of thought and their intellectual practices; and, recursiveness as persistence in expanding learning opportunities through sustained inter-paradigmatic dialogue.

KEYWORDS:

• Remunicipalisation
• Public Services
• Heterodox Economics
• Neoinstitutional Economics
• Inter-paradigmatic Dialogues

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Judith Clifton, Mildred Warner and David Hall for helpful comments and suggestions. Emanuele Lobina benefitted from conversations with Satoko Kishimoto, Germà Bel, Andrew Cumbers, Dave Elder-Vass and Robert Isaksen. He gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support of the Independent Social Research Foundation (http://www.isrf.org/about/fellows-and-projects/emanuele-lobina).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.