Mark Blyth

Professor Mark McGann Blyth
Blyth in 2018
Born	(1967-09-29) 29 September 1967 (age 57) Dundee, Scotland
Citizenship	United Kingdom, United States
Alma mater	Strathclyde University Columbia University
Known for	Global Trumpism [1]
Awards	Financial Times' 'Books of the Year 2013' for Austerity
Scientific career
Fields	Political economy
Institutions	Watson Institute for International Studies and the Department of Political Science, Brown University
Thesis	Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Political Change in the Twentieth Century (1999)
Doctoral advisors	Mark Kesselman, [2] Hendrick Spruyt [3] [4]
Website	polisci.brown.edu/people/mark-blyth

Mark McGann Blyth (born 29 September 1967) ^[5] is a Scottish-American political economist. He is currently the William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. At Brown, Blyth additionally directs the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. ^[6]

Early life

Blyth grew up in Dundee, Scotland and was raised by his grandmother after his mother died shortly after childbirth. ^[7] He played bass in rock bands and noted in an interview that "I was a musician from age 14 to 28. I've released five or six albums, but all with independent labels that never went anywhere. If they had, I wouldn't be here. I'd be lying on a beach with Heidi Klum." ^[8]

Education and career

Blyth received a BA in Political Science from the University of Strathclyde in 1990. In 1991, Blyth received a Walker Bequest award from the University of Strathclyde and a Scottish International Educational Trust Award for Study in the United States. He eventually became a US citizen. ^[9] He went on to complete post-graduate studies in the field, being awarded an MA in 1993, MPhil in 1995, and PhD in 1999 at Columbia University. ^[10] He later joined the Faculty of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University as Assistant Professor in 1997, then Associate Professor from 2005 to 2009. ^[11]

In 2009, Blyth became a Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at Brown University. In 2014, he was appointed as the Eastman Professor of Political Economy - part of a joint appointment between Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies and Department of Political Science - and, as of 2020, has served as both Director and William R. Rhodes ‘57 Professor at the Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance. ^[12]

Blyth is known for his scholarship on economic ideas ^[13] having contributed to an "ideational turn" in International Political Economy by offering sociologically informed approaches to markets and politics. ^[14]

Blyth is a vociferous critic of austerity, particularly in his 2013 book, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea - described by Salon's Elias Esquith as "necessary reading," a primer in economics, and polemical history of the austerity. Esquith praised Blyth's work for its "insight into austerity's lineage, its theories, its champions and its failures...[where Blyth] explains the damaging consequences of austerity in Europe and the U.S." In the book, Blyth criticises the argument advanced by austerity advocates as "a canard" and "complete horseshit". ^[15]

In 2016, Blyth compared "Trumpism" to similar anti-establishment movements across the developed world. ^{[16] [17]} In August 2020, he expressed support for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, ^[18] and currently sits on the Scottish Government's Advisory Council for the transformation of Scotland's economy, chaired by Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes. ^[19]

Personal life

Blyth is married. ^[20]

Works

Books

• Blyth, Mark (2002). Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (Hardcover ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-81176-7 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark, ed. (2009). Routledge Handbook of International Political Economy (IPE): IPE as a Global Conversation. Routledge. ISBN   9781135984007 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Abdelal, Rawi; Blyth, Mark; Parsons, Craig, eds. (2010). Constructing the International Economy. Cornell University Press. ISBN   9780801475887 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark (2013). Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Hardcover ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-982830-2.
• Boyd, William Lowe; Kerchner, Charles T.; Blyth, Mark, eds. (2008). The Transformation of Great American School Districts: How Big Cities are Reshaping Public Education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. ISBN   9781891792939 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Matthijs, Matthias; Blyth, Mark, eds. (2015). The Future of the Euro. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780190233235 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Abdelel, Rawi; Blyth, Mark (2015). "Just who put you in charge? We did: CRAs and the politics of ratings". In Cooley, Alexander; Snyder, Jack (eds.). Ranking the World; Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance (Hardcover ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 39–59. ISBN   978-1-107-09813-8 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Lonergan, Eric; Blyth, Mark (2020). Angrynomics (Hardcover ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN   9781788212786 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark; Pontusson, Jonas; Baccaro, Lucio, eds. (2022). Diminishing Returns: The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780197607855.

Selected articles

A more complete list can be found on Mark Blyth's curriculum vitae. ^[21]

• Blyth, Mark (2 September 2013). "'Austerity' as ideology: A reply to my critics". Comparative European Politics. 11 (6): 737–751. doi:10.1057/cep.2013.25. S2CID   144461892.
• Blyth, Mark; Lonergan, Eric (2014). "Print Less but Transfer More; Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly to the People". Foreign Affairs. 93 (September/October 2014). Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark; Helgadóttir, Oddný; Kring, William (2016). "Ideas and Historical Institutionalism". In Fioretos, Orfeo; Falleti, Tulia G; Sheingate, Adam D (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 142–162. ISBN   978-0-19-966281-4 . Retrieved 9 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark (1 September 2016). "Policies to overcome stagnation: the crisis, and the possible futures, of all things euro". European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention. 13 (2): 215–228. doi: 10.4337/ejeep.2016.02.06 . hdl: 10419/277361 . Retrieved 8 September 2020.
• Blyth, Mark; Matthijs, Matthias (17 April 2017). "Black Swans, Lame Ducks, and the mystery of IPE's missing macroeconomy". Review of International Political Economy. 24 (2): 203–231. doi:10.1080/09692290.2017.1308417. S2CID   157518024.

References

1. Blyth, Mark (15 November 2016). "Global Trumpism". Foreign Affairs. ISSN   0015-7120 . Retrieved 17 February 2019.
2. "Mark J. Kesselman, Political Science, Columbia University". polisci.columbia.edu. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
3. "Hendrik Spruyt, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University". www.polisci.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
4. Great Transformations, Acknowledgments, "Special thanks must go to the principal members of my dissertation committee at Columbia University, Mark Kesselman and Henrick Spruyt."
5. "Blyth, Mark, 1967-". Library of Congress Authorities. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
6. "Blyth, Mark". vivo.brown.edu. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
7. "Mark Blyth - Understanding the rise of populist politics in the West". Mark Blyth - Understanding the rise of populist politics in the West. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
8. Nevils, Brooke (12 October 2006). "Things I've learned: Prof. Mark Blyth". The Johns Hopkins News-Letter.
9. Schwartzapfel, Beth. "Capitalism With Airbags". Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
10. "BLYTH Mark McGann". World Who's Who. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
11. "Happy Hour with Mark Blyth". Johns Hopkins Office of Alumni Relations. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
12. "Researchers@Brown". Brown University. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
13. Béland, Daniel; Cox, Robert Henry, eds. (2010). Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736430.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-973643-0.
14. McNamara, Kathleen R. (2009). "Of Intellectual Monocultures and the Study of IPE" . Review of International Political Economy. 16 (1): 72–84. doi:10.1080/09692290802524117. ISSN   0969-2290. JSTOR   27756144. S2CID   145476039.
15. Esquith, Elias (11 February 2015). "Austerity Is 'Complete Horsesh*t': Ivy League Prof Dismantles the Conservative Lie". Salon. Retrieved 8 September 2020– via AlterNet.
16. Blyth, Mark (15 November 2016). "Global Trumpism". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
17. Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (29 September 2016), Mark Blyth ─ Global Trumpism (Video), retrieved 17 February 2019
18. ""Economist Mark Blyth: 'I'm now a convert to Scottish independence'" (Interview with Mark Blyth) | Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy". watson.brown.edu. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
19. "Delivering economic transformation - gov.scot". www.gov.scot. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
20. "Things I've learned: Prof. Mark Blyth" . Retrieved 15 May 2025.
21. "Mark Blyth CV December 2018" (PDF). Brown University. Retrieved 8 September 2020.

Further reading

• Matthews, Dylan (15 May 2015). "To fix the economy, let's print money and mail it to everyone". Vox. Retrieved 9 September 2020.

External links

• Chris Hedges’ "On Contact: The Cost of Austerity", with economist Mark Blyth. Truthdig . 12 September 2016.