Methodological and Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Relationship Between Politics and Economics

The article is devoted to the consideration of methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of the relationship between politics and economics. It is shown that they can be classified according to two criteria. Firstly, according to the criterion of exogeneity and endogeneity. The exogenous approach assumes the consideration of politics as an external factor to the economic system. An example of such an approach is Marxist political economy, in which politics is considered as a superstructure over the socio-economic base, exerting a reverse influence on it. The endogenous approach studies political actors as direct participants in economic interaction. The economy is considered as a system of political and economic interrelations that are included in economic-theoretical models. The second criterion for applying approaches to studying the relationship between politics and economics determines the use of the provisions of methodological holism and methodological individualism. Behavior of economic and political actors is considered from the position of its determination by the social-economic system within the framework of the first approach. The focus is on the problem of choice made by economic and political actors operating within certain institutional constraints in methodological individualism. In contemporary conditions one may say about the formation of a subject field of new political economy characterized with the endogenization of the study of political-economic interaction. In traditional political-economic analysis based on the principles of methodological holism approaches are emerging in which politics is viewed as an endogenous element of the economic system. There is a transition from abstract holistic models to the analysis of the behavior of individual and group actors. On the other hand, neoclassical political economy has emerged, which moves from the economic theory of politics to a comprehensive study of the relationship between economics and politics. However, discrete structural analysis has the greatest comparative advantage in conducting endogenous economic theoretical research. It allows comparing competing real alternatives to the institutional organization of the relationship between politics and economics. This approach ensures the primacy of positive analysis over normative one moving away from the institutional nirvana characterizing many competing research approaches. Nirvana approach means that existing "imperfect" institutional arrangements are compared with the ideal norm