Abstract

This paper critically examines how the marginalization of the History of Economic Thought (HET) and pluralist economics in post-Soviet Central Asia university programs has reinforced neoliberal orthodoxy and constrained intellectual diversity in economics education. It explores the reproduction of neoliberal orthodoxy within economics education, where HET has been almost entirely excised from university curricula. Across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the wider region, economics departments largely replicate orthodox (mainstream) economics based on the neoclassical doctrine. These curricula reinforce a depoliticized, market-centered worldview that normalizes the structures of neoliberal capitalism and legitimizes existing hierarchies of knowledge, power, and re/distribution. As a result, students are trained to view economic processes as technical, ahistorical, and apolitical, rather than historically contingent and socially embedded. Drawing on my teaching experience at the International School of Economics at Maqsut Narikbayev University (Kazakhstan) and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) at the post-graduate level, this paper argues for the reintroduction of HET and heterodox traditions as tools of intellectual emancipation and epistemic pluralism. I explore how teaching rooted in critical realism (Tony Lawson) and open-systems ontology and heterodoxy (Andrew Mearman) enables students to interrogate the limits of mainstream (neoclassical) theory and to link abstract models to real-world context. Modules based on a historical approach engage students with classical and contemporary debates on development, value, money, finance, austerity, free trade, competitiveness and the ‘independent’ central bank concepts and provide an overview of the plurality of majour economic ideas. The paper situates this pedagogical practice within broader debates on knowledge construction under neoliberalism, highlighting how the recovery of heterodox approaches, namely Marxian, institutionalist, post-Keynesian, and developmental, can democratize economic education. I explore the pedagogical challenges of re/introducing HET and heterodox traditions in institutional settings where neoclassical paradigms remain hegemonic. By embedding theoretical learning within the lived realities of post-socialist transformation, students begin to see economics not as a fixed science, but as a contested social field shaped by power, various ideologies, and historical change. Through classroom reflection and curriculum design, I demonstrate how HET not only enriches student understanding, but also fosters critical thinking, pluralism, and intellectual agency in the region grappling with policy orthodoxy and intellectual dependency. Ultimately, the paper argues that teaching HET in post-Soviet contexts is not merely an academic exercise, but an act of reclaiming intellectual sovereignty and fostering a new generation of critical, context-aware economists and intellectuals capable of envisioning alternative development futures.