RESEARCH

John Meadowcroft’s research focuses on the impact of institutions and normative ideas on policy and politics. He uses the analytical framework of public choice theory and constitutional political economy to study how individual actors pursue self-conceived ends within institutions for collective action (including political parties, protest movements and government bureaucracies) and how different institutions determine the salience of different ideas and vice versa.

James Buchanan and constitutional political economy

A principal focus of this research has been critical engagement with the work of James M. Buchanan – the principal founder and theoretician of public choice and constitutional political economy. John wrote a short biography of Buchanan, published by Continuum in 2010 and revised in paperback by Bloomsbury in 2013.

Since publishing this book John has written a series of articles engaging with different aspects of Buchanan’s work: examining the account of power used in public choice theory (Public Choice 2014); setting out the relevance of the American founding for Buchanan’s constitutional economics (Public Choice, 2020); critically evaluating Buchanan’s demogrant proposal (Constitutional Political Economy 2021, with Otto Lehto); and analysing the place of slavery and freedom in Buchanan’s theory of politics-as-exchange (Journal of Institutional Economics, 2023).

The far right and the collective action problem

John has also investigated how far right groups solve the collective action problem, showing how the English Defence League provided the selective incentives of access to violence, group solidarity and increased self-worth, which outweighed the costs of time, money and stigma for those individuals who became activists (Political Studies, 2017, with Elizabeth Morrow).

A second article explained the rise and fall of the EDL in terms of the ability of the group to supply these direct personal benefits in the light of internal and external factors including policing strategies and the presence of ‘marginal members’ who undermined the efficiacy of activism (Political Studies, 2019, with Elizabeth Morrow).

Hayek and Austrian economics

John has a long-standing research interest in the work of F. A. Hayek and Austrian economics. He co-wrote an empirical critique of Hayek’s road to serfdom thesis, showing that the dynamics of rent seeking meant small and big government was inherently unstable, whereas social democratic mixed economies were relatively stable (Political Studies, 2014, with Andre Azevedo Alves). He has also written on Hayek’s relationship with the Pinochet regime in Chile (Review of Political Economy, 2014, with William Ruger).

John has also questioned the paucity of Austrian economists not ideologically committed to free markets (Advances in Austrian Economics, 2019) and used Austrian ideas to develop an ethical defence of private sector enterprises (Journal of Markets and Morality, 2007)

Healthcare policy and ethics

John has published research on the political, organisational and ethical challenges of the British National Health Service that provides universal healthcare free at the point of delivery funded from general taxation.

He has analysed the NHS through the lens of the Socialist-Calculation Debate (Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2003; HEC Forum, 2005), used public choice theory to examine the interest group dynamics therein (Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2008), and employed normative analysis to interrogate the ethics of single-tier healthcare provision like the NHS (Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2015).

Liberty and the ethics of markets

John has also made a number of contributions to liberal and libertarian political theory. He co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Cambridge University Press, 2011, with Ralf Bader). His book, The Ethics of the Market (Palgrave, 2005), synthesised liberal and libertarian defences of a market economy. John was also Series Editor of the nineteen-volume collection, Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers, published by Continuum in 2010-2 and reissued in paperback by Bloomsbury in 2013.

He has recently critically evaluated the explanations for the predominance of egalitarian views among academic philosophers offered by Hayek and Nozick, arguing, contra those thinkers, that such commitments do not follow from the personality type of philosophers, but from the institutional structure of academic philosophy (Social Philosophy and Policy, 2022).

Social capital

John has also researched the role of social capital in an advanced economy, showing that commercial relationships may be an important source of the ‘thin’ social capital essential to a complex, advanced social order, whereas adversarial, zero-sum political processes may consume but not replenish this social capital (Resucing Social Capital from Social Democracy, Institute of Economic Affairs, 2007, with Mark Pennington; Review of Austrian Economics, 2008, with Mark Pennington).

The Liberal Democrats in local government

John’s PhD research was an empirical study of the Liberal Democrats in UK local government that combined quantitative and qualitative research methods. Two published articles drawn from this study analysed how the Lib Dems recruited local councillors given the high costs and often small benefits of service as a local authority member (Local Government Studies, 2001), and evaluated the impact of the party’s strategy of community politics (Local Government Studies, 2001).