Rethinking Neoliberalism

Territory, Politics, Governance, 2016

Does neoliberalism matter for cities, urbanization processes, urban governance and policies? How and to what extent? What does this even mean? These questions are important as neoliberalism is a contentious and powerful political project and paradigm. This paper argues that: (1) it may be fruitful to be clearer about the meaning of neoliberalism rather than adopting an encompassing constructivist framework; and (2) that neoliberalism may not explain that much about the current transformation of urbanization processes and cities. Instead, these mechanisms need to be better specified and their limits defined: urban worlds and the urbanization processes of cities do not change all the time, in all ways. Rather than embracing the multiple, everchanging forms of neoliberalism and the contructivist framework underpinning this position , this paper identifies a set of central points to define neoliberalism by contrast to liberalism, as one possible working definition of neoliberalism. Secondly, it discusses the neoliberalization of cities and urban policies, recognizing that cities change for many reasons, of which neoliber-alism is just one. RÉSUMÉ : Le néolibéralisme, at -il une importance pour les grandes villes, les processus d'urbanisation, la gouvernance urbaine et la politique des villes? Comment et dans quelle mesure? Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire? Ces questions-là sont importantes parce que le néolibéralisme constitue un projet et un paradigme politiques à la fois controversés et puissants. Cet article affirme 1) qu' il pourrait s'avérer utile d'éclaircir le sens du néolibéralisme plutôt que d'adopter un cadre constructiviste global; et 2) qu'il se peut que le néolibéralisme ne dise pas grande chose à propos de la transformation actuelle des processus d'urbanisation et des grandes villes. En revanche, il faut que ces mécanismes-là soient mieux précisés et leur limites définies: le monde

2021

This article explores why cultural branding – ideo-affective market communication addressing intense political tensions – paradoxically seems to lead to political inertia rather than political mobilization. I critically analyse advertising addressing political tensions related to race, ethnicity and immigration, but instead of only following the traced-out trajectory of postcolonial theory, I use the lens of Žižek’s radicalized Lacanian psychoanalysis and treat the therapeutic visuality in cultural branding as ideological fantasies of the market’s multicultural imaginary. Through critical visual methodologies, I situate four ‘multicultural’ commercials in their culture- and idea historical contexts, and juxtapose a postcolonial with a Žižekian reading for each of them. I come to argue that the market’s multicultural imaginary (unconsciously) serves important ideological functions in sustaining the political status quo not foremost because it placates anxiety, but because it doesn’t....

Religions, 2021

Towards the end of the twentieth century, religion re-emerged as a topic of pressing concern in a number of the most self-consciously secularized states of the global north. From disputes over the wearing of headscarves in schools to debates over accommodations for religious practices in the public sphere, religion, particularly the ‘foreign’ religiosity of migrants and other minority religious subjects, appeared on the scene as a phenomenon whose proper place and role in society required both urgent and careful deliberation. This article argues that in order to account for the affective potency produced by the immanence of the figure of the ‘foreign’ religious subject, it is necessary to understand secularization as fantasy. It is within the fantasy of secularization that the secular emerges as an object of desire—as something that, if attained, appears as a solution to the problem of ‘foreign’ religiosity—and figures of inassimilable religiosity assume the role of scapegoats for t...

Annals of Leisure Research, 2019

Sport-for-development is increasingly employed as a tool for domestic development within marginalized communities. In Australia, sport is assumed to have a 'natural fit' with Aboriginal communitiesaccordingly it is utilized in a variety of ways. In seeking to challenge and examine this situation and the dominant / unquestioned / invisible assumptions inherent, we propose the notion of cultural offsettingwhereby sport is positioned as a way of offsetting a variety of losses that Australian Aboriginal communities and peoples have experienced and continue to experience. Within the context of sport, this article examines whether cultural offsetting using sport is feasible and/or desirable. While the conclusion reached is that Aboriginal peoples have been using sport as a cultural offset for some time, serious questions remain regarding the capacity of sport-for-development programmes to offset the variety of losses (e.g. culture, language, identity) experienced by Aboriginal Australians.

International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 2019

There has been a neoliberal re-ordering of the political intent behind education in Ghana. Prior to the said re-ordering, education was a means by which the government facilitated the citizen's acq...

New Political Economy, 2018

The article offers a critique of the prevailing understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism and classic nineteenth-century liberalism in contemporary international political economy (IPE) and offers a redefinition inspired by Polanyi and Gramsci. Within critical IPE studies, a consensus has emerged that neoliberalism cannot be reduced to a simple attempt to roll back the economy and let loose free-market forces. However, this insight relies on contrasting neoliberalism with a classic liberalism, that is, a simple attempt to implement just this naïve laissez-faire ideology. In contrast, this article argues that nineteenthcentury liberalism is also characterised by an active use of state and legislative power. Through a historical study of two cases from nineteenth-century Britain, Poor Law reform and the Gold Standard, the paper will argue that state action played a central role even during the heyday of laissez-faire liberalism. With a starting point in Polanyi's dictum that 'laissez-faire was planned', this reinvestigation will point towards a need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the distinctions between economic theory, ideology, and practical policy, as well as pointing towards a general reinterpretation of the role of the state in liberal economic ideology.

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2017

This paper explores neoliberalisation and its counter-currents through a six-case study of austerity urbanism in Spain and the UK. Applying Urban Regime Theory it highlights the role of urban politics in driving, variegating and containing neoliberalism since the 2008 crash. Variegated austerity regimes contribute to strengthening neoliberalism, but with limits. Welfarism survives austerity in felicitous circumstances. And, where contentious politics thrive, as in Spain, it holds out the potential for a broader challenge to neoliberalism. In contrast, austerity regimes in the UK cities are strongly embedded. The legacies of past struggles, and differing local and regional traditions form an important part of the explanation for patterns of neoliberalisation, hybridization and contestation.

Teachers and Teaching, 2014

This paper examines collaborative researcher-practitioner knowledge work around assessment data in culturally diverse, low-socioeconomic school communities in Queensland, Australia. Specifically, the paper draws on interview accounts about the work of a cohort of school-based researchers (SBRs) who acted as mediators bridging knowledge flows between a local university and a cluster of schools. We draw on Bernstein's (2000) concept of recontextualisation to explore the processes of knowledge mediation in dialogues around student assessment data to design instructional innovations. We argue that critical policy studies need to explore the complex ways in which neoliberal education policies are enacted in local sites. Moreover, we suggest that an analysis of collaborative knowledge work designed to improve student learning outcomes in lowsocioeconomic school communities necessitates attention to the principles regulating knowledge flows across boundaries. In addition, it necessitates attention to the ways in which mediators navigate dilemmatic spaces, anxieties and affects/feelings in order to generate innovative learning designs in the current global context of high-stakes national testing and accountability regimes.

Policy Studies, 2016

The rise of government by indicators, by figures may reveal a new wave of rationalization organized by the state in the classic Weberian sense. Contemporary forms of government are marked by the rise of indicators, measures and new metrics to compare, certify, codify and evaluate. In many countries, performance measurement has become one of the symbols of the transformation of governance. The paper aims to show how performance indicators are a particular type of policy instrument that increases competitive pressure within societies even if that cannot be analysed only in terms of neoliberalism.

International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship, 2020

This article contributes to critical discussions questioning the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship by examining the experiences of men and women entrepreneurs who have recently become employers in South Wales, the United Kingdom. Our research uses a co-creative visual method based in interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore transitions from entrepreneur to entrepreneur-employer in everyday contexts. Findings demonstrate how initial emancipatory experiences become increasingly bounded when becoming an entrepreneur-employer. This exposes a Catch-22 of entrepreneuring-as-emancipation as a symptom of neoliberal entrepreneurial discourses that constrain what entrepreneurs are encouraged to do: grow. We find a plurality of particular emancipations, but conclude that within a developed context entrepreneurship, and more specifically, becoming an entrepreneur-employer is a relational step through which perceived constraints become more readily experienced and emanc...

Pastoral Care in Education, 2017

As neoliberal ideology has come to dominate higher education, the roles and relationships of managers, academics and students have changed radically. This article outlines ways in which neoliberalism and its companion ideology, neoconservatism, have impacted on higher education through a move to individualism, managerialism, measurement and accountability. While the context for this article is New Zealand, the experiences will resonate with academics worldwide. Using a conceptual framework highlighting conscious, unwitting and coercive complicity, the authors analyse their experiences of teaching in the neoliberal university. They discuss three themes to emerge from their findings: (a) universities as instruments of neoliberalism; (b) academics as managed subjects; and (c) students as entitled consumers. They conclude by offering examples of ways to resist the competitive and individualising regime by creating a culture of care and compassion.

Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2021

This article recovers the concept of "Ideology", anathematised by postmodern hegemony; here, taken out of the theoretical opprobrium in which it is found, I use it to carry out a critique of a youth-oriented community development program in the city of Barcelona. This approach should not be an exception, given that young people are so mercilessly bombarded with social programs elaborated around clearly ideological concepts such as "resilience" or "empowerment". Contrary to a certain commonplace narrative that defends the withdrawal of the state while facing the forces of the market, that process of neoliberal ideologisation is carried out not only with the acquiescence of states, but also with their active participation. The analysis of a public program such as this one shows, empirically, how governments are complicit with market forces through programs that transmit and put into practice neoliberal ideology.