Hayek and After: Hayekian Liberalism as a Research Programme Hardcover - 1996

From the rear cover

This book offers a distinctive treatment of Hayek's ideas as a 'research programme'. It presents a detailed account of aspects of Hayek's intellectual development and problems that arise within his work, and offers some broad suggestions of ways in which the programme initiated in his work might be developed further. The book opens with an overview, and then discusses how Popper and Lakatos's ideas about research programmes might be applied within political theory. There then follows a distinctive presentation of Hayek's intellectual development up to The Road to Serfdom, together with critical engagement with his later ideas. The discussion draws on a full range of his writings, makes use of some neglected earlier work on social theory and law, and also draws on archival material. The book also makes some unusual comparisons, including discussions of Gaventa and of E. P. Thompson, and presents controversial suggestions on how a 'Hayekian' approach should be further developed. The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in Hayek's work and to those concerned with twentieth century intellectual history. It offers a distinctive interpretation of his views and a particularly wide-ranging survey of what in the author's view now needs to be done in the pursuit of a Hayekian approach to classical liberalism.