Mapping the milestones of modern times : intellectual landscape of political economy through bibliometric analysis

Andolšek, Jure (author), Černe, Matej (author), Lamovšek, Amadeja (author)

We present the development and current state of the field of political economy. We implemented three bibliometric approaches (i.e., co-citation, co-word, and bibliographic coupling) and interpreted the results using the “invisible colleges” framework through six time frames (up until 1989, 1990–2001, 2002–2008, 2009–2016, 2017–2020, 2021–2023). This produced an integrative and holistic framework of the field of political economy, portraying its historic development and theoretical background, conceptual space, and nomological net, guiding future research on this and connected research fields. By exploring the field's conceptual and semantic spaces, the analysis offers practical recommendations, identifies emerging research areas, and organizes future themes into actionable research questions informed by theoretical frameworks.

• Language: English
• Keywords: political economy, economic research, bibliometric analysis, intellectual evolution, interdisciplinary integration, research trends
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 821–838
• Numbering: Vol. 40, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179698
• UDC: 330.1
• ISSN on article: 0950-0804
• DOI: 10.1111/joes.70023
• COBISS.SI-ID: 254993411
• Publication date in RUL: 20.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of economic surveys
• Shortened title: J. econ. surv.
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0950-0804
• COBISS.SI-ID: 1027349

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: politična ekonomija, ekonomsko raziskovanje, bibliometrična analiza

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: J5-4574
• Name: Omejitve agilnega dela: preučevanje učinkov agilnosti na spanje in inovativnost

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0441
• Name: Regeneracija ekonomije in posla