Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Research on neoliberalism tends to conceive of it as fundamentally about ‘free markets’. But this confuses theoretical with actually existing neoliberalism. This article presents a meta-narrative of neoliberalism since the 1970s that conceptualises it as a political economic project seeking to enhance corporate and elite power through market, non-market and anti-market policies (vectors of power). These policies have been propelled globally by two forces and implemented via four mechanisms. The two forces are ideological and police/military power and have convinced or coerced policy-makers and ordinary people into accepting neoliberal change. The four mechanisms have emerged successively over time and all operate in parallel today: policy experiments arose in the 1970s, policy transfers in the 1980s, rule regimes in the 1990s and self-regulation in the 2000s. Our conceptualisation offers a methodological framework to empirically investigate concrete aspects of neoliberalism in various places and time periods.

Keywords

corporate power free market neoliberalisation neoliberalism political economy

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aspers

(2011) Markets. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

Baker

(2011) The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive. Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Baker

(2016) Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Boas

Gans-Morse

(2009) Neoliberalism: From new liberal philosophy to anti-liberal slogan. Studies in Comparative International Development 44(2): 137–161.

Birch

Siemiatycki

(2016) Neoliberalism and the geographies of marketization: The entangling of state and markets. Progress in Human Geography 40: 177–198.

Brenner

Peck

Theodore

(2010a) Variegated neoliberalization: Geographies, modalities, pathways. Global Networks 10: 182–222.

Brenner

Peck

Theodore

(2010b) After neoliberalization. Globalizations 7: 327–345.

Bruff

(2016) Neoliberalism and authoritarianism. In: Springer

Birch

MacLeavy

(eds) The Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge, 107–117.

Bruff

(2014) The rise of authoritarian neoliberalism. Rethinking Marxism 26(1): 113–129.

10.

Cahill

(2014) The End of Laissez-Faire? On the Durability of Embedded Neoliberalism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

11.

Carroll

Carson

(2006) Neoliberalism, capitalist class formation and the global network of corporations and policy groups. In: Plehwe

Walpen

Neunhöffer

(eds) Neoliberal Hegemony: A Global Critique. London: Routledge, 51–69.

12.

Cerny

(2010) Rethinking World Politics: A Theory of Transnational Neopluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

13.

Chang

H-J

(2008) Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

14.

Clua-Lusada

Ribera’Almandoz

(2017) Authoritarian neoliberalism and the disciplining of labour. In: Tansel

(ed) States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of Capitalist Order. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 29–46.

15.

Crouch

(2011) The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

16.

Dardot

Laval

(2014) The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society. London: Verso.

17.

Dean

(2014) Rethinking neoliberalism. Journal of Sociology 50(2): 150–163.

18.

Desai

Foley

Hines

(2006) The demand for tax haven operations. Journal of Public Economics 90: 513–531.

19.

Dharmapala

Hines

(2009) Which countries become tax havens? Journal of Public Economics 93: 1058–1068.

20.

Di Giovanni

(2017) Urban transformation under authoritarian neoliberalism. In: Tansel

(ed) States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of Capitalist Order. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 107–128.

21.

Duménil

Lévy

(2011) The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

22.

Economics and Statistics Administration and US Patent and Trademark Office (2016) Intellectual property and the U.S. economy: 2016 update. Washington, DC: ESA and USPTO. Available (accessed 25 May 2018) at: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/IPandtheUSEconomySept2016.pdf

23.

Epstein

(2006) Central banks as agents of economic development (WIDER Research Paper No. 2006/54). Tokyo: United Nations University. Available (accessed 28 June 2018) at: http://archive.unu.edu/hq/library/Collection/PDF_files/WIDER/WRP/WRP189.pdf

24.

Epstein

Yeldan

(2009) Beyond inflation targeting: Assessing the impacts and policy alternatives. In: GA

Epstein

Yeldan

(eds) Beyond Inflation Targeting: Assessing the Impacts and Policy Alternatives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 3–27.

25.

European Patent Office and European Union Intellectual Property Office (2016) Intellectual property rights intensive industries and economic performance in the European Union. Alicante and Munich: EPO and EUIPO. Available (accessed 24 May 2018) at: https://euipo.europa.eu/tunnel-web/secure/webdav/guest/document_library/observatory/documents/IPContributionStudy/performance_in_the_European_Union/performance_in_the_European_Union_full.pdf

26.

Faux

(2006) The Global Class War: How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future—and What It Will Take to Win It Back. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

27.

Gill

(1995) Globalisation, market civilisation, and disciplinary neoliberalism. Millennium 24(3): 399–423.

28.

Gill

(1998) New constitutionalism, democratisation and global political economy. Pacifica Review: Peace, Security & Global Change 10(1): 23–38.

29.

Greenhouse

(2014) Noncompete clauses increasingly pop up in array of jobs. New York Times, 4 June. Available (accessed 25 May 2018) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html

30.

Grossman

Woll

(2014) Saving the banks: The political economy of bailouts. Comparative Political Studies 47(4): 574 –600.

31.

Harcourt

(2011) The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

32.

Harcourt

(2017) Bodies in resistance: Conversation on gender, body politics and authoritarian neoliberalism. In Tansel

(ed) States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of Capitalist Order. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 67–86.

33.

Harvey

(2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

34.

Harvey

(2016a) Neoliberalism is a political project. Jacobin. Available (accessed 28 June 2018) at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/david-harvey-neoliberalism-capitalism-labor-crisis-resistance/

35.

Harvey

(2016b) Crisis theory and the falling rate of profit. In: Subasat

(ed) The Great Financial Meltdown: Systemic, Conjunctural or Policy Created? Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 37–54.

36.

Helleiner

(1994) States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

37.

Herman

Chomsky

(2002) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York, NY: Pantheon.

38.

Howard

King

(2008) The Rise of Neoliberalism in Advanced Capitalist Economies: A Materialist Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

39.

Jordana

Levi-Faur

Fernández

Marín

(2011) The global diffusion of regulatory agencies: Channels of transfer and stages of diffusion. Comparative Political Studies 44(10): 1343–1369.

40.

Juris

(2008) Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

41.

Kindleberger

Aliber

(2011) Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

42.

Klein

(2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York, NY: Henry Holt.

43.

Konings

(2010) Neoliberalism and the American state. Critical Sociology 36(5): 741–765.

44.

McChesney

(2004) The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Monthly Review.

45.

Megginson

(2017) Privatization trends and major deals in 2015 and 2016. In: Privatization Barometer, The PB Report 2015/2016. Milan: Privatization Barometer, 2–32. Available (accessed 20 May 2018) at: http://www.privatizationbarometer.com/PUB/NL/5/9/PB_AR2015–2016.pdf

46.

Mercille

(2014) The role of the media in fiscal consolidation programmes: The case of Ireland. Cambridge Journal of Economics 38: 281–300.

47.

Mercille

(2015) The Political Economy and Media Coverage of the European Economic Crisis: The Case of Ireland. London: Routledge.

48.

Mercille

Murphy

(2015) Deepening Neoliberalism, Austerity, and Crisis: Europe’s Treasure Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

49.

Mercille

Murphy

(2016) Conceptualising European privatisation processes after the Great Recession. Antipode 48(3): 685–704.

50.

Mercille

Murphy

(2017a) What is privatization? A political economy framework. Environment and Planning A 49(5): 1040–1059.

51.

Mercille

Murphy

(2017b) The noliberalization of Irish higher education under austerity. Critical Sociology 43(3): 371–387.

52.

Mirowski

(2009) Postface: Defining neoliberalism. In: Mirowski

Plehwe

(eds) The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 417–456.

53.

Mirowski

(2013) Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. London: Verso.

54.

Mirowski

Plehwe

(2009) The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

55.

Mudge

(2008) What is neo-liberalism? Socio-Economic Review 6: 703–731.

56.

Norris

(2011) Volcker rule may work, even if vague. New York Times, 21 January. Available (accessed 23 May 2018) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/business/21norris.html

57.

Nye

(2004) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

58.

Palley

(2015) The Federal Reserve and shared prosperity (Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper #389). Available (accessed 23 May 2018) at: https://www.epi.org/publication/federal-reserve-and-shared-prosperity/

59.

Panitch

Gindin

(2012) The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire. London: Verso.

60.

Panitch

Konings

(2009) Myths of neoliberal deregulation. New Left Review 57(May/June): 67–83.

61.

Peck

(2001) Neoliberalizing states: Thin policies/hard outcomes. Progress in Human Geography 25(3): 445–455.

62.

Peck

(2010) Construction of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

63.

Peck

Tickell

(2002) Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34(3): 380–404.

64.

Peet

(2009) Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO (2nd edition). London: Zed Books.

65.

Piketty

(2014) Capital in the Twenty-first Century. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.

66.

Posch

Schmitz

Weber

(2009) EU bank packages: Objectives and potential conflicts of objectives (Financial Stability Report 17). Austrian Central Bank. Available (accessed 14 June 2018) at: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:2e978392-ffb5-433a-be78-5d691d98693e/fsr_17_special_topics02_tcm16-140532.pdf

67.

Power

(1999) The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

68.

Reinhart

(2000) The mirage of floating exchange rates. The American Economic Review 90(2): 65–70.

69.

Reinhart

Rogoff

(2009) This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

70.

Roy

Denzau

Willett

(eds) (2007) Neoliberalism: National and Regional Experiments with Global Ideas. London: Routledge.

71.

Schmidt

Thatcher

(eds) (2013) Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

72.

Scott

(2011) Heading south: U.S.–Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA (EPI Briefing Paper #308). Economic Policy Institute, 3 May. Available (accessed 28 June 2018) at: http://www.epi.org/publication/heading_south_u-s-mexico_trade_and_job_displacement_after_nafta1/

73.

Sikka

(2009) Shifting profits across borders. The Guardian, 12 February. Available (accessed 3 June 2018) at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/11/taxavoidance-tax

74.

Starr

Prescott

Bishara

(2018) Noncompetes in the U.S. labor force (University of Michigan Law & Economic Research Paper 18-013). Available (accessed 25 May 2018) at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2625714

75.

Stedman Jones

(2012) Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

76.

Springer

(2015) Violent Neoliberalism: Development, Discourse, and Dispossession in Cambodia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

77.

Swedberg

(1994) Markets as social structures. In: Smelser

Swedberg

(eds) Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 255–282.

78.

Tansel

(ed) (2017) States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of Capitalist Order. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

79.

US Treasury (2016) Non-compete Contracts: Economic Effects and Policy Implications. Washington, DC: Office of Economic Policy.

80.

Van Apeldoorn

(2002) Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration. London: Routledge.

81.

Van Apeldoorn

(2009) The contradictions of ‘embedded neoliberalism’ and Europe’s multi-level legitimacy crisis: The European project and its limits. In: Van Apeldoorn

Drahokoupil

Horm

(eds) Contradictions and Limits of Neoliberal European Governance: From Lisbon to Lisbon. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 21–43.

82.

Wacquant

(2010) Crafting the neoliberal state: Workfare, prisonfare, and social insecurity. Sociological Forum 25(2): 197–220.

83.

Wacquant

(2012) Three steps to a historical anthropology of actually existing neoliberalism. Social Anthropology 20(1): 66–79.

84.

Wacquant

(2016) Revisiting territories of relegation: Class, ethnicity and state in the making of advanced marginality. Urban Studies 53: 1077–1088.

85.

Wallerstein

(2008) 2008: The demise of neoliberal globalization. Monthly Review, 1 February. Available (accessed 28 June 2018) at: https://mronline.org/2008/02/01/2008-the-demise-of-neoliberal-globalization/

86.

Zucman

(2015) The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Market,Non-Market and Anti-Market Processes in Neoliberalism

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References