Abstract Musgravean public economics, as the dominant public policy framework of the post-WWII era, argued that the government can and should supplement the price mechanism in order to create a social order within which a democratic society can flourish. Starting with the late 1970s, this project of public economics has been challenged by the growing dominance of neoliberalism as a form of governmentality that extends the economic logic of markets into the domain of the state and its mode of exercising sovereignty over its subjects. After outlining the historical and the disciplinary context of this challenge, the article maintains that endogenous theoretical confrontations internal to public economics should also be taken into consideration to provide a fuller account of the eclipse of the Musgravean public economics in the era of neoliberalism. Keywords Public economics after neoliberalism: A theoretical-historical perspective Abstract Musgravean public economics, as the dominant public policy framework of the post-WWII era, argued that the government can and should supplement the price mechanism in order to create a social order within which a democratic society can flourish. Starting with the late 1970s, this project of public economics has been challenged by the growing dominance of neoliberalism as a form of governmentality that extends the economic logic of markets into the domain of the state and its mode of exercising sovereignty over its subjects. After outlining the historical and the disciplinary context of this challenge, the article maintains that endogenous theoretical confrontations internal to public economics should also be taken into consideration to provide a fuller account of the eclipse of the Musgravean public economics in the era of neoliberalism
