Ceteris Never Paribus: The History of Economic Thought Podcast

Host: François Allisson

Guests: Maria Bach (University of Lausanne) and Scott Scheall (Universit of Austin)

In this special crossover episode between Ceteris Never Paribus and Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar: A History of Economics Podcast, François Allisson welcomes Maria Bach and Scott Scheall for a conversation on their two podcasts, which they started back in 2017.

Many thanks to François Allisson for hosting the collaborative episode and for bringing together audiences from both podcasts.

We hope listeners of both podcasts will enjoy the conversation!

Guest: David Engerman (Yale University)

Host and Producer: Maria Bach (University of Lausanne)

In this episode features David Engerman, Leitner International Interdisciplinary Professor of History at Yale University, and a leading scholar of twentieth-century international and global history. His work has reshaped how we understand the intellectual and political history of development, spanning topics from Cold War expertise and Soviet-American exchanges to the global history of aid and economic thought.

David Engerman is the author of several influential books, including Modernization from the Other Shore and The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India, and his research has consistently explored how ideas about development, inequality, and global power have moved across borders and institutions. In this episode, we’ll be discussing his latest book, Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made.

Guests: Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (University of Chicago) and Carl Wennerlind (Barnard College)

Host and Producer: Maria Bach (University of Lausanne)

In this episode, Maria Bach talks to authors of the book Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind.

In their book they trace how today’s dominant view—endless desires demanding endless growth—emerged only over centuries of debate and ideological struggle.

A French translation (cover featured above to the right) will come out in March 2026.

Guest: Saarang Narayan (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali)

Host and Producer: Maria Bach (University of Lausanne)

A political poster issued by the Bharatiya Janta Party in recent years, promoting the Swadeshist message as part of their “Ghar Ghar Swadeshi” (Swadeshi in Every Household) campaign.
A list of key terms with short explanations discussed in the episode

Swadeshi is a Hindi/Hindustani word that literally means ‘of one’s own country’ (swa=one’s own/self; desh=country). The slogan gained popularity in the early twentieth century, especially in the popular movement against the partition of Bengal in 1905, and went on to inspire the founding of domestic institutions and the production and consumption of goods as modes of anti-colonial politics. Although it remained part of the discourse around developmentalism and economic planning in the mid-twentieth century, it regained popularity in the context of the public debates about globalisation and neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s. While it is comparable to slogans like ‘Buy British’ or ‘Buy American’, there is a characteristic ethical and socio-cultural dimension that separates Swadeshist principles from simple autarky or protectionism. This ethical and socio-cultural dimension concerns the definition of the Swadeshist ‘self’ along religious and cultural lines, often limiting it to Hinduism.

Hindu Nationalism is a broad term used here to encapsulate those visions of nationalism in India that define the Indian identity and history through the lens of Hinduism. This is to say that Hindu Nationalists often link the modern nation-state to a primordial Hindu past, where the religious and cultural practices of the supposed ancient Hindu peoples defined their identities. While India’s contemporary Hindu far-right has spearheaded this form of nationalism, there have been other actors who subscribe to such a vision of the Indian nation. What makes the Hindu far-right different from other such actors is the former’s palingenetic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic interpretations of Hindu Nationalism. The Hindu far-right describes its mode of Hindu Nationalism as ‘Hindutva’ or Hindu-ness, as outlined in the works of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers’ Union) was founded in 1925. It is the apex body of the Hindu far-right with the goal of (re-)establishing India as a Hindu Nation. The RSS was founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar as a para-militaristic body of Hindu men to arm Hindu society against its cultural enemies. The second supreme-leader of the RSS, Madhavrao Sadashiv Golwalkar, identified these enemies in order of the threat that they posed to Hindus as follows: Muslims, Christians, and Communists. The RSS primarily functions through local chapters (shakhas or branches) and is comprised of volunteers (swayamsevaks) and led by preachers (pracharaks). Although Swadeshist ideas were primarily popularised by political actors who were summarily opposed to the politics of the RSS, the RSS adopted Swadeshi in the 1950s, and it has remained at the core of its economic thought ever since.

Throughout its century-long existence, the RSS has faced three major bans and, despite its majoritarian, fascistic goals, has adapted strategies of dynamism and flexibility in its tactics, ideas, and political language to meet these challenges. The first two decades of independent India were the lowest point in the RSS’s public and political presence, and it gained increasing popularity and political ground in the mainstream from the mid-1970s onwards. Part of its strategy of expansion has been the creation of smaller affiliate organisations, geared towards specialised tasks. This conglomerate of far-right organisations headed by the RSS has come to be known as the Sangh Parivar (Family). The current ruling party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the electoral wing of the RSS, and many of its members (including Prime Minister Narendra Modi) started out as swayamsevaks in the RSS before joining the BJP.

Guest: Peter Boettke (George Mason University)

Host and Producer: Maria Bach (Centre Walras-Pareto, University of Lausanne)

Based on almost 2 years of interviews with current and former PhD students, supervisors along with lots and lots of conversations on supervision, I offer you a series of episodes on supervision.

In the first episode, I explore a series of critical “don’ts” that both PhD students and their supervisors should be aware of to ensure a healthier, more productive PhD journey. In the following episode, I will be offering up lots of solutions or rather the dos of supervision. Then there will be an episode on all the cases where it’s not clear what the best solution is, or the solution is rather different depending on context: I am calling them the in-betweens. In this fourth episode I will be talking to a sort of PhD coach, who has lots of experience with supervising and thinking about supervision. A final short episode will offer us a list of 10 key things that supervisors and PhD students need – the 10 commandments of supervision, if you will.