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Criticism directed at neoclassical economics has failed to replace it with a similar grand theory. The authors argue that one possible explanation may lie in the failure of economists to formulate an opinion as to the philosophical foundations of the author’s object of study. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The argument proceeds in two steps. First, the authors review the prevailing philosophical view of “the self-interest theory (S)”, which is one of the most powerful constituents of today’s economics, and social theorizing in general. Second, the authors present a reasoning framework in which rationality becomes intelligible within a schema of integrating the self’s external and internal conditionalities into a unified view of human reasoning.

Self-interest has been supposed to give the authors direction about what, concretely, to do, but, on the way, the authors have learned that defining rationality is necessarily a life-dependent process. The conflicts of reasons call for a revised S according to which rationality implies consistency among a person’s competing behavioural drivers rooted in three ontological realms, natural, social, and cultural.

First, understanding the purpose of one’s actions in rational terms demands redirecting attention from outcomes in terms of utility, profits, or welfare to a social profile of a rational person, with real life coordinates in space and time, as well as the personal histories of that individual. A change in explaining aspirations leads, and this is the second implication, to change in defining the meaning of economic (or social) behaviour. Decision making is not necessarily a process of virtuously selecting the best available options, but assessing and acting according to the opportunity of choice; it is not about freedom of choice, but about the degree of freedom a person is willing and is able to take advantage of.

This chapter contributes to the conceptual effort to find an ‘encompassing framework’ to understand the rugged landscape of territorial development. A paradigmatic shift is in need to reflect the gains from trade increasingly as a result of territorial communality rather than market optimality.

This contribution reviews first the tenets of the core-periphery models premised on three interpretations of space, that is, uniform-abstract space, diversified-relational space and uniform-stylised space. The conventional (spatial) models of peripherality are increasingly questionable when considering the relevance of more appropriate ‘aspatial’ concepts for understanding the conditions for growth and development across territories.

The conclusions emphasise the need to drop the norm of a universal policy related to a space of development divided in advanced and lagging areas. The implications range from re-stating the unit of analysis to re-stating the role of policy coordination in a multi-core integration environment.

This chapter attempts to evade the ‘illusion’ of the coincidence of political space with economic and human space. We aim at gaining ground towards a framework of analysing development that substitutes relational specificity of local economies for uniform territories of aggregate socio-economic features.

This paper aims to tackle in turn the merits and limits of Nicholas Georgescu‐Roegen's entropic model, as well as its implications for the methodological discourse in economics. This appraisal of the Georgescu‐Roegen's work emphasizes the emergence of the entropic nature of the economic processes as a paradigm à la Kuhn of explanation in social economics.

This work provides a critical assessment of the entropic model's main conceptual pillars, namely the role of mathematical formalism and the natural imagery of irreversibility. This discussion takes them in turn and develops a critique from a methodological point of view.

The focus of this work is that the proposed epistemological reconstruction of economics is vulnerable to attacks from two methodological objections. The first deals with the change of metaphor from the “pendulum” of mechanics to the “hourglass” of thermodynamics. The second refers to the changes this replacement of metaphors brings about as to the relevance of the formalism of the discipline.

This material has gathered arguments to show that the intellectual concurrence of the arguments onto the field of physics makes the methodological value of the new paradigm of entropy not transcend into a new logic of reasoning in economics. The limits of this approach stems from the same rationale for which it has got its revolutionary stature: what it proposes consists of a scientific discourse based on a mixture of evolutionary biology, economics and thermodynamics, which may open up new original and insightful perspectives, but which has never been justified on terms of economic nature alone.

The overlapping measures of “state vulnerability” prompt a double interrogation: about their methodological validity, and analytical relevance. Against this epistemic framework, the purpose of this paper is to ask whether the relentless quest for precision may prevent obtaining meaningful and realistic policy implications.

This paper contrasts various theoretical views of “state vulnerability” and explores their applicability for the development processes in south‐east Europe. The argument proceeds along a comparative analysis of three categories of variables, of political (i.e. government effectiveness), economic (i.e. macroeconomic performance) and institutional nature (i.e. human development) over the last decade and the usefulness of available early warning indicators is examined.

The findings point to the supposition that “vulnerability” is an elusive concept despite many attempts at quantifying fragility of statehood. The success of quantitative studies to generate practical comparative data undoubtedly plays a helpful role in designing state‐building trajectories although they must be seen in a broader context. Without a key breakthrough in the way datasets of quantitative and qualitative nature are combined, their actual effectiveness would be seriously diminished.

The choice to favour investigative breadth over analytical depth is intended to let the conclusions come up in the guise of a complementary and summative account of the amassing amount of scholarship that leaves the phenomenon of development exposed to disparate accounts, at least as far as the thin balance between fragility and viability is concerned. Critical points in development pass less visibly and are less tractable to identifiable sources than a conventional perspective may suggest.

This paper aims to advance the argument that the process of wealth creation predominantly originates from the economic system of democracy. It seeks to put forth the concept of economic democracy and understand as the process enabling the opportunities for welfare gains to multiply in favour of ever‐larger parts of population.

The paper questions the main insight of the conventional view on the benefits of specialisation according to which a nation's prosperity becomes inevitable under the circumstances of efficient allocation of available resources. It takes instead account of how economic interests intertwine with political processes and proposes an analytical deconstruction of the economic influence of political decisions with extensive consideration to Olson's perspective on collective action.

The argument is that the conventional prediction is necessarily limited by several particular occurrences that make the process of wealth creation take a course dependent on the democratic organization of economic activities. The set of policy actions, as well as its underlying principles rest on the understanding that diversification of sources of economic gains should stand as option number 1 on any governmental priority list in order to achieve a better standard of living.

The paper sheds light on a different perspective, which does not take for granted the principles of free market and open society as determinants of a country's prosperity and proposes instead an understanding of the sources of prosperity based on occupational diversification as a practical consequence of the economic democracy.