The return of Keynesianism? Exploring path dependency and ideational change in post-covid fiscal policy

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The aim of this article is to explore the nature of policy change in the domain of public finance (fiscal policy) in the wake of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic as well as for a post-Covid era. It draws upon the literatures of path dependency and ideational change in public policy to consider three broad questions: (1) whether the pandemic really is a critical juncture for policy change; (2) whether the extant neoliberal austerity paradigm has faced lasting ideational displacement by Keynesianism; and (3) whether Covid-19 has really punctuated the existing fiscal policy equilibrium or rather served as a path-clearing accelerator of public finance trends that were already underway. The article then
suggests three potential future trajectories: Keynesian, neoliberal, and mixed/other to consider how the path of policy change might materialize in the fiscal realm in the post-Covid era.

This article was published at https://academic.oup.com/policyandsociety/article/41/1/68/6513363