This book challenges the conventional narrative that the 1970s were a fundamental watershed between two seamless economic policy paradigms in postwar United Kingdom, Keynesianism and neoliberalism. Drawing on extensive archival research, José Tomás Labarca highlights heterogeneity and discontinuity in postwar economic policymaking rather than consensus. The book argues that there was no seamless Keynesian economic policy epoch, challenging widespread misconceptions about excessive government spending in the 1960s and 1970s to offer a novel interpretation of shrinking policy space in the 1970s. Centering the multidimensional politics of official knowledge, Labarca provides an original analysis of how conflicts between competing government elite coalitions drove fragmented policy change before and after the 1970s. While most research focuses exclusively on the politics of economic ideas, Fragmented Policy Change proves that not only economic but also organizational and bureaucratic ideas, processes, and interests influence the evolution of relatively (in)coherent policy regimes.

‘Fragmented Policy Change provides a deeply researched and theoretically sophisticated analysis of fiscal policy-making in post-war Britain. By exploring how Treasury officials constructed and reframed the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement during the 1960s and 1970s, José Tomás Labarca reveals the politics that lies beneath economic indicators and forces us to rethink established narratives about Keynesianism and neoliberalism.’

Peter Sloman - Professor of British Politics, University of Cambridge

‘With meticulous research and a sharp eye, Labarca reconstructs the conflicts and coalitions that gave us Thatcherism as we know it, upending long-standing assumptions about one of the most important political transformations of the twentieth century. A must-read for any serious scholar of neoliberalism, policy change, and state budgets.’

Sarah Quinn - Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Washington

‘This is an outstanding inter-disciplinary exploration of the political economy of fiscal policy-making which shows brilliantly how fiscal indicators and symbolic fiscal practices shape policy outcomes. Its empirically and theoretically rich analysis of the contested epistemic politics of the official knowledge infrastructures through which economic policy is made challenges existing interpretations in political economy, economic sociology, and economic history.’

Ben Clift - Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick, author of The IMF and the Politics of Austerity