Rethinking the Double Movement: Expanding the Frontiers of Polanyian Analysis in the Global South

Abstract

Over the last two decades a rich and diverse body of literature has emerged which uses the ‘double movement’ to analyse social, political and economic change in the global South. The main aims of this article are to expand the boundaries of this scholarship and improve our understanding of how to use the concept to analyse capitalist development in the region. It seeks to achieve this by explaining and extending the original formulation of the double movement, creating a dialogue between scholars who follow alternative readings of the concept, and proposing a revised formulation which builds on the existing literature while moving in new directions. The article concludes by signposting potentially fruitful areas of Polanyian analysis.