Alexandre Mendes Cunha

ABOUT

Alexandre Mendes Cunha is Associate Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and Research Productivity Fellow of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq). He was the head of the UFMG’s Centre for European Studies (2014-18) and is a Jean Monnet Professor since 2015, coordinating different grants by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. Since 2016, he has also served as a member of the Council of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET).

He specializes in the history of economic thought and intellectual history, studying the international diffusion of economic ideas in different historical contexts, with emphasis on 18^th century Enlightenment studies and Europe in the interwar and immediate post-war periods.

The primary focus of his recent research has been the dissemination of cameralism beyond the Germanic world and on police matters (in both the French and Germanic traditions) as an important aspect of economic governing during the 18^th century, particularly in the context of Enlightened reformism.

His project to his residency at the Institute is to reflect on the influence of the enlightened reforms on transformations in the political economy discourse during the second half of the 18^th century, with particular reference to the Iberian world. The idea is to use a broad case study as the gateway to the analysis of the combination of ideas that shapes reformist action and the specific uses of the economic language in that context.

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RECENT WRITINGS

Political Economy and International Order in Interwar Europe (co-edited with Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

“Influences and Convergences in the Dissemination of Cameralist Ideas in Portugal.” History of Political Economy (2021) 53: 497-514.

“Postwar third-way perspectives: François Perroux on national income and planning.” History of Political Economy (2020) 52: 653–682.

“The Reception and Appropriation of Malthus in Portugal and Brazil” (co-authored with José Luís Cardoso), in: Malthus Across Nations: The Reception of Thomas Robert Malthus in Europe, America and Japan (ed. Gilbert Faccarello, Masashi Izumo and Hiromi Morishita). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020.