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Publics and Markets. What’s Wrong with Neoliberalism?

Clive Barnett

THEORIZING NEOLIBERALISM AS A egoists, despite much evidence that they POLITICAL PROJECT don’t. Critics of neoliberalism tend to assume that increasingly people do act like this, but Neoliberalism has become a key object of they think that they ought not to. For critics, analysis in human geography in the last this is what’s wrong with neoliberalism. And decade. Although the words ‘neoliberal’ and it is precisely this evaluation that suggests ‘neoliberalism’ have been around for a long that there is something wrong with how while, it is only since the end of the 1990s neoliberalism is theorized in critical human that they have taken on the aura of grand geography. theoretical terms. Neoliberalism emerges as In critical human geography, neoliberal- an object of conceptual and empirical reflec- ism refers in the first instance to a family tion in the process of restoring to view a of ideas associated with the revival of sense of political agency to processes previ- economic liberalism in the mid-twentieth ously dubbed globalization (Hay, 2002). century. This is taken to include the school of This chapter examines the way in which Austrian economics associated with Ludwig neoliberalism is conceptualized in human von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Joseph geography. It argues that, in theorizing Schumpeter, characterized by a strong com- neoliberalism as ‘a political project’, critical mitment to methodological individualism, an human geographers have ended up repro- antipathy towards centralized state planning, ducing the same problem that they ascribe commitment to principles of private property, to the ideas they take to be driving forces and a distinctive anti-rationalist epistemo- behind contemporary transformations: they logy; and the so-called Chicago School of reduce the social to a residual effect of more economists, also associated with Hayek but fundamental political-economic rationalities. also including leading monetarist economist Proponents of free markets think that people Milton Friedman. David Harvey’s definition should act like utility-maximizing rational of neoliberalism condenses a set of emphases

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that characterize accounts of this object of and deployed by left-wing academics and analysis more generally: political activists’ (2006: 450). As a critics’ term, neoliberalism is presented as an idea- Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that tional project and political programme that human well-being can best be advanced by liberat- seeks to supplant collective, public values ing individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills with individualistic, private values of market within an institutional framework characterized by rationality as the guiding principles of state strong private property rights, free markets and policy, economic governance and everyday free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate life. It should be said that there is no single to such practices. The state has to guarantee, for critical conceptualization of neoliberalism example, the quality and integrity of money. It must circulating in human geography. Neoliberalism also set up those military, defence, police and legal is sometimes conceptualized as a policy para- structures and functions required to secure private digm; sometimes more broadly as a hegem- property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets. Furthermore, onic ideology; and sometimes as a distinctive if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, form of governmentality (Larner, 2000). education, health care, social security, or environ- Linking these three different approaches is mental pollution) then they must be created, by an overwhelming emphasis on the guiding state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks force of explicit forms of knowledge in shap- the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare ing social change. minimum because, according to the theory, the The explicit conceptual elaboration of state cannot possibly possess enough information critical theories of neoliberalism and neo- to second-guess market signals (prices) and because liberalization has been pioneered by human powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and geographers and spatially sensitive socio- bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit (Harvey, 2005: 2) logists. Neoliberalism is understood as an ideology that is shaped in a few centres and The ascendancy of this ‘ideology’ is recounted then diffuses outwards, and a political project through a standardized narrative that touches that aims to reorder the territorial framing of on a series of focal points (Hoffmann et al., capital accumulation. The resulting process 2006): a period of economic crisis that shook of neoliberalization is understood to be geo- the foundations of the post-Second World graphically uneven. The basic outlines of War, Keynesian settlement as the conjuncture neoliberalism as an object of critical analysis in which previously marginal neoliberal include the following: economic theories were translated into real- world policy scenarios; the role of economists ● Neoliberalism is understood as an ideology from the University of Chicago in Pinochet’s that encompasses various forms of free-market Chile in the 1970s, Reagonomics in the USA fundamentalism. in the 1980s, and so-called Thatcherism in ● Neoliberalism is diffused and translated across the UK in the 1980s; the role of key inter- contexts very quickly. ● Neoliberalism is operative at various spatial scales. national agencies, such as the International ● Neoliberalism displaces established models of Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as welfare provision and state regulation through being responsible for diffusing neoliberalism policies of privatization and deregulation. globally through the so-called Washington ● Neoliberalism brings off various changes in sub- Consensus in development and foreign aid jectivity by normalizing individualistic self-interest, policy; and the taken-for-granted claim that entrepreneurial values, and consumerism. neoliberalism has, over time, been trans- formed from an ideology into hegemonic In the constitution of neoliberalism as an common sense. object of critical analysis, the overwhelm- Wendy Larner observes that ‘the concept of ing emphasis is upon neoliberalism as an neoliberalism is overwhelmingly mobilized ‘ideational project’. It is from this emphasis

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that the agenda for geographical research critical, but at a cost. Critical theorists of follows: neoliberalism are condemned to invoke their favoured positive values (e.g. the public realm, ● tracking the diffusion of this ideology through collective solidarity, equality, democracy, care, different geographical contexts; social justice) in a moralistic register without ● mapping the variable articulation of this ideology addressing normative problems of how practi- with other processes in different places; ● examining the normalization of this ideology in cally to negotiate equally compelling values. spatial practices of subject formation. And in so far as theories of neoliberalism dismiss considerations of rational action, If thetheoretical constitution of neoliberal- motivation, and decentralized coordination ism as an ideological project generates an as so much ‘ideology’, they remain chroni- automatic agenda for geographical research, cally constricted in their capacity to reflect then it also constructs the task of critical seriously on questions of institutional design, analysis in a distinctive way. If neoliberali- political organization and economic coordi- zation is assumed to work through the natu- nation which, one might suppose, remain an ralization of market rationalities and the important task for any critical theory. normalization of individualistic egoism, then Section 2 introduces the basic outlines of the critical task becomes one of exposing the conceptualizations of neoliberalism in geogra- various dimensions of neoliberalization as phy and related fields. This section considers social constructs. how neoliberalism and neoliberalization have Critical theories of neoliberalism and neo- been conceptualized in Marxist political econ- liberalization provide a compelling moral omy. Neoliberalism is understood as a revival narrative in which recent history is under- and renewal of laissez-faire economic libe- stood in terms of a motivated shift away from ralism, holding to principles of free markets public and collective values towards private and the minimal state. Section 3 looks at how and individualistic values. Critical narratives Foucault’s ideas about liberal governmentality of neoliberalism reinforce the image of there are used to bolster these narratives of political being a clear-cut divide between two sets of economy. Section 4 argues that it is worth values – those of private, individualistic self- taking seriously the way in which public interest on the one hand, and those of public, rationalities are problematized in a family of collective interests on the other. There is a economic models of bureaucracy, welfare and preconstructed normative framing of these democracy that attract far less attention in theories around a set of conceptual and moral geography’s ‘neoliberalism’ than the ideas of binaries: market versus state; public versus free-market liberals like Hayek and Friedman. private; consumer versus citizen; liberty versus Section 5 discusses some of the normative equality; individual utility versus collective blindspots of prevailing conceptualizations of solidarity; self-interested egoism versus other- neoliberalism and, by extension, of critical regarding altruism. human geography more broadly. Theories of neoliberalism go hand in hand with a standard form of criticism that bemoans the decline of public life, active POLITICAL ECONOMIES OF citizenly virtue, and values of egalitarianism NEOLIBERALISM and solidarity. These theories project ahead of themselves criteria of evaluation (cf. Neoliberalism as accumulation by Castree, 2008): neoliberalism reduces democ- dispossession racy, creates poverty and inequality, and is imposed either from the outside or by unac- In Harvey’s (2005) conceptualization, neo- countable elites. The conceptual analysis of liberalism emerges in response to the eco- neoliberalism is therefore always already nomic crisis of the 1970s, displacing the

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‘embedded liberalism’ represented by others, has been translated into a project of Keynesianism with a more voracious and socio-economic transformation, neoliberali- transparent strategy aimed at restoring capi- zation, whose primary agent is ‘the state’: tal accumulation. Harvey’s narrative focuses ‘Neoliberalization has in effect swept across on the ascendancy of finance capital over the the world like a vast tidal wave of institu- last three decades. On this analysis, neoliber- tional reform and discursive adjustment’ alism has not been particularly successful (Harvey, 2006: 145). Harvey’s narrative as a means of restoring conditions for stable explains this translation of theory into reality economic growth and capital accumulation. by invoking the Gramscian idea of hegem- It has been a redistributive rather than a ony, suggesting that neoliberal ideas have generative programme, driven by strategies become incorporated into ‘the common-sense of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey, way we interpret, live in and understand 2005: 159–63). This is a mode of accumula- the world (ibid.: 145). The deployment of tion which, through practices such as privati- the term ‘hegemony’ in political-economic zation and financialization, seeks to transfer accounts of neoliberalism over-estimates the publicly or commonly held assets and degree to which the reproduction of unequal resources into private property. In Harvey’s social relations depends on winning the analysis, accumulation by dispossession has consent of subordinated, exploited actors. the effect of fragmenting and particularizing In Harvey’s account, neoliberalism becomes social conflicts (ibid.: 178), in contrast to hegemonic through a vaguely defined ideo- strategies that sustain accumulation through logical mechanism of ‘naturalization’: transformations to the labour process based For any system of thought to become hegemonic on extended wage-labour, which have a uni- requires the articulation of fundamental concepts versalizing effect in so far as they render that become so deeply embedded in common- transparent their own class content. sense understandings that they become taken for In Harvey’s account, neoliberalism is granted and beyond question. For this to occur not any old concepts will do. A conceptual apparatus defined as a theory of political-economic has to be constructed that appeals almost ‘natu- practices of free markets, which is highly rally’ to our intuitions and instincts, to our values flexible and can be implemented by both and our desires, as well as to the possibilities that liberal democratic and authoritarian regimes. seem to inhere in the social world we inhabit. Since neoliberalization is understood as an (Harvey, 2006: 146) accumulation strategy aimed at restoring The intuitively appealing concept that neo- class power, neoliberalism, with its seductive liberalism deploys is ‘freedom’, any usage of rhetoric of freedom, has ‘primarily worked which is therefore cast under a dark cloud of as a system of justification and legitimation suspicion. ‘Social justice’ on the other hand for whatever needed to be done to achieve is assumed to have an obvious, unambiguous this goal’ (2005: 19). So it turns out that, as a resonance. ‘theory’, neoliberalism does not serve a very Harvey (2005: 40-41) alludes to hegemony practical function in actually pursuing accu- being secured by the changing experiential mulation by dispossession at all. It is mainly basis of everyday life under volatile capital- ‘a benevolent mask full of wonderful-sounding ism. This leaves open the possibility of words like freedom, liberty, choice, and exploring the ways in which various moda- rights, to hide the grim realities of the resto- lities of rational action are framed and ration or reconstitution of naked class power’ mobilized in the construction of hegemony. (ibid.: 119). However, the analysis of neoliberalization as The defining claim in Marxist political a redistributive rather than a generative proc- economies of neoliberalism is that the ess of accumulation by dispossession pre- ideational project represented by neoliberal- cludes the possibility that capital accumulation ism, supposedly formulated by Hayek and might be a positive-sum game, and that this

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could provide material grounds through were sustained through Keynesian devices which legitimation is secured. Neoliberalism that rolled out welfare provision and state ends up being legitimated ‘ideologically’, by infrastructures to sustain high levels of manipulating the representational content consumption. Accumulation and regulation that people carry around in their heads. were both ‘scaled’ at the national level. Hegemony is presented as a cultural process The crisis of Fordism, in turn, is manifest of constructing common sense that is mis- in the reordering of these different institu- leading, obfuscatory, and disguises real prob- tional arrangements, not least in terms of the lems (Harvey, 2005). Geography’s Marxism ‘hollowing-out’ of the national level as vari- therefore attains its culturalist high point in ous regulatory functions are relocated to sub- seeking to sustain an economistic rendering national and supra-national scales (Jessop, of the contemporary scene. 2002; Peck, 2001). From this perspective, neoliberalism is the ‘tendential’ trajectory from the Keynesian Neoliberalization as a tendential Welfare National State to a Schumpeterian trajectory Workfare Regime, expressed in a raft of policies for managing a new relationship Theories of neoliberalism effectively abolish between a post-Fordist regime of accumu- the recurrent problem in Marxism of ‘the lation and a re-tooled mode of regulation. relative autonomy of the state’ by describing Describing neoliberalism as ‘tendential’ is a neoliberalization as a political project which, way of claiming that this is the leading tra- at the level of theory, favours market rela- jectory of transformation everywhere, even tions over state intervention while, at the though nowhere in particular accords to level of hegemonic practice, it has success- either of these ideal-typical models. In the fully captured the state as the means of pur- regulationist account of neoliberalism, the suing its objectives. Capital’s internal logic, culturalist inflection to political economy conceptually isolated through an analysis is given even freer reign than in Harvey. pitched at a very high level of abstraction, is Objects of regulation, and indeed the dimen- then found to cascade downwards until it is sions of economic crisis itself, are under- directly voiced by the state. stood to be constructed through narratives The idea that ‘the state’ voices the class (Jessop: 1999). ‘Globalization’ functions interests of capital, and thus becomes a as a master narrative of crisis, and neoliberal- vehicle for its own diminution, is most ism provides the discursive solution to this clearly expressed in ‘state-theoretic’ accounts crisis. of neoliberalism which draw on regulation The reference to Schumpeter in the regu- theory. These approaches emphasize proc- lationist analysis is important for under- esses of geographical rescaling in narrating standing the normative background to a shift from Fordist to post-Fordist regimes political-economy approaches to neoliberal- of capital accumulation. Regulation theory ism. Writing in the 1940s, Schumpeter (1942) focuses on the question of how a crisis- presented capitalism as a vibrant system ridden system like capitalism establishes characterized by ‘creative destruction’, in stable conditions for growth. It draws on which capitalist risk-takers pursuing their intermediate concepts to explain the func- own self-interest with minimal state interfer- tional relationship between particular organi- ence would generate investment and inno- zations of the labour process and systems vation to sustain high levels of economic of production (a regime of accumulation) and growth. To secure this positive-sum outcome, extended infrastructures for social reproduc- capitalism should be subjected only to the tion (a mode of regulation). Under Fordism, regulatory tinkering of the liberal state in the so the story goes, high wages and high profits interests of maximizing market efficiency.

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Standing opposed to Schumpeter in the Polanyi is an important source for sociolo- regulationist narrative of neoliberalism is gized critiques of free-market theories. In the figure of Karl Polanyi. Also writing in the the discipline of economic sociology, it is 1940s, Polanyi (1944) provided a compelling argued that all markets, even the most ‘free’, moral critique of the idea that human welfare are embedded in broader contexts. In insti- could best be secured by letting free markets tutional economics, ‘institutions’ are defined reign supreme. For Polanyi, free markets can with reference to an expansive field of rules, create rapid growth only by undermining the routines and norms. In actor-network theory, conditions of human sociality upon which emphasis is on the ways in which various they depend. For him, creative destruction technologies and devices frame fields of was more destructive than it was creative. action as ones governed by market rational- To be sustainable, and to promote human ity, and in turn generate various unintended welfare, economic relationships needed to consequences. All three of these fields cast be embedded in a fabric of regulations, insti- doubt on whether a purely ‘free’ market as tutions and social norms. envisaged in neoclassical economics is pos- Polanyi’s ideas provide both an ontologi- sible. In principle, there is scope here for cal framework within which to locate the considering how markets can be organized in pathological consequences of free-market accord with public values of care, welfare fundamentalism and a normative framework and equity (Smith, 2005; Rodríguez-Pose in which to criticize the limitations of this and Storper, 2006). But the primary lesson ideology. Neoliberalism represents the tri- drawn from this work by theorists of neolib- umph of a narrowly formal economizing eralism is to argue that markets and other mode of market rationality, which in turn economic relationships are ‘socially con- leads to the disembedding of economic activ- structed’. This is presented as if it were ities from a wider context of substantive a knock-down argument against the theo- social relationships, institutions and norms retical perspective of mainstream economics, upon which long-term socio-economic sta- which is itself taken to be nothing but an bility depends. This in turn generates an instrument of neoliberalization. In particular, ongoing dynamic through which neoliberal- it is concluded that the ‘social constructed- ism constantly adjusts to the volatile crises it ness’ of markets effectively invalidates any is itself responsible for. and all concerns with the analysis of rational Theories of neoliberalism therefore exploit action by individualized actors (Peck, 2005). an ambivalence in Polanyi’s legacy. On the In geography’s theories of neoliberalism one hand, there is an argument that seems and neoliberalization, the argument about the to suggest that market rationality, if left to ‘social construction’ of markets serves only its own devices, could actually float free to sustain a claim about the highly orches- from substantive relationships. On the other trated qualities of contemporary political- hand, there is an implication that even the economic transformations. freest of ‘free markets’ must be embedded Claims about the social construction of in some context of norms and institutions. markets are closely related to arguments This ambivalence is exploited in theories of about the importance of drawing into view neoliberalism by appealing to the either/or how neoliberalism is a ‘political project’. But sense of ‘embedded’ versus ‘disembedded’ the regulationist approach works with a markets to make critical judgements; while rather thin understanding of what counts as deploying the second, descriptive sense to political action. The state is understood to be bolster the argument that economic relation- a political actor only in so far as it mobilizes ships are always functionally sustained by particular types of resource (coercive mecha- particular projects of social regulation over- nisms such as military power, policing, taxa- seen by the state. tion; ideological resources such as education

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and nationalism) in pursuit of its generic neoliberalism takes on different forms in function of cohering together a class-divided different places, the ‘family resemblances’ society. ‘Political’ refers in this approach to a between these forms allows some essential means of acting (through the state) that is features to be isolated: ‘adequate concep- governed by a particular set of motivations tualizations must be attentive to both the (the self-interest of class actors). It is only in local peculiarities and the generic features this sense that neoliberalism is understood to of neoliberalism’ (2002: 388). There is a tell- be a political product. ing slippage here between a geographical The notion that neoliberalism is best characteristic (‘local peculiarities’) and a theorized as an ‘ideational’ project’ has a formal characteristic (‘generic features’). pedigree that predates geography’s detailed The generic character of neoliberalism is theorization of this topic over the last decade located in the ideological content of a set of (e.g. Przeworski, 1992). It leads inevitably political philosophies, economist theorems to a focus on elites as the primary agents and policy prescriptions (Peck, 2004). The of change (see Genev, 2005). In Peck and claim that neoliberal ideas are enshrined Tickell’s (2002) account of the neoliberaliza- in global ‘rules’ and circulated by a set of tion of space, this emphasis on neoliberalism global regulatory agencies such as the WTO, as an ideational project is directly connected IMF and World Bank which discipline states to a distinctive geographical programme of around the world is sustained through an research on diffusion and contextual articula- entrenched vocabulary of ‘discourse’ and tion. It is argued that the ideas of neoliberal ‘material practices’. The term ‘discourse’ has thinkers cascaded through various academic come to serve as a kind of inferential trans- and non-academic knowledge networks and ponder that explains away just how highly gained ascendancy in the United Kingdom abstract philosophical principles (from Hobbes and the United States in the 1980s (see Plehwe or Locke or Smith) and highly arcane social et al., 2006). Neoliberalism has a heartland in science theorems (from micro-economics and the ‘home spaces’ of USA and UK, and then public choice theory) manage to bring off diffuses through various ‘zones of extension’. disciplinary effects on national governments, This hierarchical distinction follows naturally state agencies, and ordinary citizens. from the emphasis placed on neoliberalism This style of theoretical reasoning is what as first and foremost an ideational project. makes neoliberalism an exemplary geograph- This in turn underwrites a linear model of ical object of analysis. Refinements of theo- geographical analysis, in which the ‘generic’ ries of neoliberalization call for more attention dimensions of neoliberal ideology are dif- to the path-dependent interaction between fused outwards, touching ground in particu- neoliberal programmes and context-specific lar contexts where they ‘articulate’ with and institutional and social frameworks (Brenner ‘hybridize’ the contextual landscapes of par- and Theodore, 2002); more empirical work ticular cities, regions or nation-states in Latin on the variability of neoliberalism as policy America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. paradigms are transferred from place to place This picture of the geography of neoliber- (Bondi and Laurie, 2005); and considerations alization supports, and in turn is supported of the disjunctures between ‘liberal’ and by, a distinctive understanding of the rela- ‘neoliberal’ programmes and imperatives tionship between empirical analysis and (Mitchell, 2004). In short, neoliberalism is a theory building. Any observed variation or theoretical object that automatically gener- adaptation of neoliberal ideology to local ates a series of geographical enquiries: context does not cause theorists of neoliber- alization to revise the basics of their theories. ● the analysis of the diffusion of neoliberal It only confirms the main outlines of their ideology through the political processes of narratives. Peck and Tickell argue that while neoliberalization;

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● the analysis of the contextual specificity of neo- De-politicizing politics liberalization, and of its articulation at different scales; In theories of neoliberalism and neoliberal- ● the analysis of the hybridization of neoliberalism ization, the theoretical preference for very with other political projects (e.g. neoconserva- high levels of abstraction is associated with a tism) and with other social relations (e.g. gender, tendency to make a geographical virtue out race, ethnicity); ● the reordering of public and private spaces of of the consistent failure to theorize the state work and care; as anything other than a functional attribute ● and finally (always finally), there is plenty of of the reproductive requirements of capital. scope for the analysis of social movements that Particular state-formations and patterns of arise in response to and in order to resist neolib- political contention are acknowledged only eralism and the effects of neoliberalization. as local, territorialized, contextual factors that help to explain how the universalizing The meta-theories of neoliberalism that trajectory of neoliberalism, orchestrated from generate this field of geographical enquiry the centre and organized through global net- remain immune to criticism. They are refined works, nonetheless always generates ‘hybrid’ by focusing on neoliberalization. This is assemblages of neoliberalism. a concept that allows for the acknowledge- This style of theorizing makes it almost ment of diverse origins and varied pathways impossible to gainsay the highly generalized of neoliberalisms’ unfolding, its uneven and claims about neoliberalism as an ideology incomplete character, while all the time and neoliberalization as a state-led project insisting that it remains a singular ‘tenden- by referring to empirical evidence that might tial’ trajectory of contemporary life (Peck, seem to contradict these grand concepts. For 2006). Whether it is theoretically coherent to example, it is almost taken for granted that ascribe general features to such a variable the hegemony of neoliberalism is manifest in phenomenon, and whether the sorts of gener- the reduction of state expenditures on wel- alization from specific cases that these sort of fare in the face of external pressures of neo- claims require is coherent, is far from certain liberal globalization. Empirical evidence for (Castree, 2006). welfare-state decline is, in fact, far from con- What remains unclear is why, if neo- clusive. Welfare regimes have actually proved liberalism never appears in pure form, and highly resilient in terms of both funding when it does appear it is always compounded and provisioning (see Taylor-Gooby, 2001). with other projects and processes, the out- At the same time, the extent to which open- come of any neoliberal ideational project market economies foster rather than menace should continue to be called ‘neoliberali- high levels of national welfare provision is zation’. What is it that makes the hybrid also hotly debated (Taylor-Gooby, 2003). In compounds through which these specific both cases, the idea of any straightforward ideologies make themselves felt always liable shift from state to market seems a little to be named ‘neoliberal’, if this is only one simplistic (Clarke, 2003). But, from the per- of their components? The one ‘generic’ fea- spective of geography’s meta-theories of ture that high-level abstractions of neoliber- neoliberalization, all of this is so much grist alism do not specify is the parasitical force to the contextualizing mill. Contrary evidence which gives neoliberalism an asymmetrical can be easily incorporated into these theories energy in shaping the corrosive trajectories precisely because they lay levels of concep- of future capitalist development in its own tual abstraction directly onto scales of con- image. For critics, it is this parasitical and textual articulation. corrosive force, implied but never specified, Presenting differential state formation as that is the source of what is wrong with a contextual variable is related to a much neoliberalism. broader displacement of political action in

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general to a lower level of conceptual abstrac- constraints might also be operative elsewhere. tion in theories of neoliberalism. One aspect It is routine to suggest that neo liberalism is of this is the persistent treatment of a broad ‘imposed’ on developing economies exter- range of social movement activity as prima- nally, through the Washington Consensus rily a secondary response to processes of promulgated by the IMF, World Bank and neoliberalization. But, more fundamentally, WTO. However, Stokes (2001) argues that Marxist political economies of neoliberalism patterns of neoliberalization in Latin America pay almost no attention, at a conceptual in the 1980s and 1990s can be explained in level, to the causal significance of the institu- large part by analysis of the dynamics between tional and organizational forms that shape electoral campaigning, party mobilization, political action (Hay, 2004). This is indica- mandate and accountability as they played tive of a broader failure to think through how themselves out in periods of democratic tran- distinctive forms of contemporary democratic sition and consolidation. In her account of politics shape pathways of economic devel- ‘neoliberalism by surprise’, democratic gov- opment and capital accumulation. Theories ernance, party competition, electoral account- of neoliberalism take for granted the capacity ability and responsiveness to constituents’ of states to implement particular policies in interests all play crucial roles in explaining order to put in place the regulatory condi- whether, how, and why neoliberal policies are tions for particular accumulation strategies. adopted. This assumption overlooks the degree to which Strictly speaking, these sorts of considera- the time-space constitution of democratic tions do not need to disturb the secure concep- politics in liberal democracies serves as ‘sub- tual vantage point offered by political-economy stantial impediments to the achievement of theorizations of neoliberalism. This paradigm neo-liberal goals’ (Johnston and Glasmeier, is, as already suggested, internally attuned to 2007: 15). Given the territorialization of party recognize the variety and hybridity of neolib- support and the territorialized organization eralisms, and is able to ascribe variation to the of electoral politics, liberal democracy gen- necessary articulation of generic neoliberal erates strong pressures that militate against ideology, circulated globally, with territorial- wholly flexible and open labour markets, ized logics operative at ‘lower’ geographical sustain subsidies and protectionist measures, scales. Whether or not one finds this type of and support the promotion of investment in analysis convincing comes down to a decision particular locations. In theories of neoliberal- between different styles of theory. Political- ism, processes of free market reform in the economy approaches seek high-level abstrac- USA and UK since the 1980s are considered tions in order to identify fundamental features models of more general tendential logics. of phenomena (the logic of capital accumula- But these examples might be quite specific tion in Harvey, the capitalist state in Jessop, outcomes of the balance of political forces neoliberal ideology in Peck and Tickell). in those polities when compared to the pat- These abstract imperatives are then mapped terns of welfare reform and tax policy in empirically through a kind of deductive cas- European countries (Prasad, 2006; see also cade, where they bump into other phenomena Glyn, 2006). such as states, or racial formations, or gender Taking into account the ways in which relations. Because of their distinctive onto- state action is constrained by the time-space logical features (e.g. their institutional quali- constitution of electoral, representative ties, their territorial qualities, their discursive democracy is particularly relevant for under- qualities and their identity-based qualities), standing why relatively wealthy, advanced these phenomena have never been amenable industrial economies do not conform to the to the same sort of explanatory rationalism tendential logic predicted by political-econ- that allows the dynamics of capital accumu- omy theories of neoliberalization. These same lation to be defined so purely.

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The effect of these theorizations is to (Skocpol, 1979; Mann, 1988). In theories of de-politicize politics. If the dominant logic neoliberalization, this concept of the state of state action can always be discerned from as a constituted sovereign actor that is also understanding the logic of capital accumu- an arena for social conflict underwrites the lation and the balance of class forces, then claim that the state can and does now express that is really all one ever really needs to the class interests of capital univocally. This know (Clarke, 2004a). This de-politicization sort of analysis continues to take for granted of politics ‘out there’ is an effect of the infla- the sovereign capacities of ‘the state’ as an tion of the political force ascribed to the instrument for the forcing through of various academic work of critique: analysis of poli- political programmes translating ideational tics is reduced to a matter of understanding projects. how a logic already known in advance is dif- Neoliberalism and neoliberalization would ferentially enacted, so that the critical task of appear somewhat differently from the ‘poly- such analysis can be presented as a political morphous view of the state’, premised on act of exposing naturalized forms as social what Mann (1993: 52) calls ‘organizational constructs. materialism’. This view focuses on the dis- Despite the polite nods to ideas of ‘relative tinctive characteristics of political institu- autonomy’, political-economy theories of neo- tions and their relationships with other actors. liberalism retain coherence only by appealing Such a non-reductionist approach suggests in the last instance to a reductionist theory a different view of the restructuring of state of the state. Gramscian state theory, with its actions upon which so much analysis of ‘strategic relational’ view of the state, is a neoliberalism and neoliberalization focuses. pretty sophisticated version of reductionism, An organizational materialist view of state able to acknowledge all sorts of autonomous formation opens the way for an alternative action by state agencies and beset by all sorts style of analysis of the simultaneous retreat of contradictions with underlying logics of of the state from certain areas of activity and capital accumulation. Nevertheless, narratives proliferation into other areas that so exercises of neoliberalization hold fast to two basic political-economy accounts of neoliberaliza- assumptions about ‘the state’. Firstly, the state tion. It suggests an analysis of the extent to is understood as a territorialized power con- which state actions are determined by the tainer exercising sovereignty through its interactions between the dynamics of histori- monopoly of violence and definitions of legal- cally sedimented state imperatives and insti- ity (Harvey, 2005: 159). Secondly, the state is tutional frameworks and their responses to understood as an arena in and through which the changing dynamics of mobilization and conflicts defined by reference to class inter- organization of collective actors in civil soci- ests are fought out. For example, in Harvey’s ety, broadly defined (see Offe, 1996). characterization, during Keynesian ‘embed- Taking the relational constitution of state– ded liberalism’ the state became ‘a force field society interactions seriously (see Corbridge, that internalized class relations’ (ibid.: 11), 2008; Migdal, 2001) would allow analyses of and in turn neoliberalization reflects the con- contemporary transformations to bring into quest of this constituted state power in order view the proactive role of a series of actors, to enact accumulation by dispossession. projects and processes that get little if any Combining these two assumptions leads attention in political-economy accounts of to an analysis in which the variable scope, neoliberalization. This would include consid- extent and reach of sovereign state action eration of the secular dynamics of individu- is explained with reference to a changing alization and risk (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, balance of social forces. The state is under- 2001; Taylor-Gooby et al., 1999), and how stood as an object and instrument of class these are transforming the dynamics of struggle, but not as ‘an organization-for-itself’ collective-will formation which relationally

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constitute the scope and content of state simplistic moral order onto a rather more action. It would include greater consideration complex reality. Nevertheless, this distinc- of the complex dynamics of bureaucratic and tion inadvertently opens up room for tether- administrative transformation (Du Gay, 2000). ing an alternative theoretical framework It would include the geographical dynamics to the regulationist paradigm. In order to of social reproduction which are not simply describe and explain the ‘roll-out’ of new adjustments to neoliberalization (Yeates, 2002). welfare and regulatory regimes by putatively Moreover, it would open space for apprecia- neoliberal states, geographers have increas- tion of the proactive role of social movement ingly turned to the theoretical vocabulary of mobilizations in emergent forms of ‘non- ‘governmentality’. governmental politics’ (Feher, 2007). It is also a view consistent with recent work which theorizes the ways in which state activities continue to reach into the ordinary spaces NEOLIBERAL GOVERNMENTALITY of everyday life (see Corbridge et al., 2006; Painter, 2006). The concept of ‘governmentality’ is a neolo- As already suggested, theories of neo- gism used by Michel Foucault (1991) in his liberalism are remarkably flexible in the work on modern forms of political power. face of empirical evidence that seems to It is a term that combines ‘government’ and run counter to the pattern of state roll-back ‘rationality’, suggesting a form of political and market expansion predicted by the neo- analysis that focuses on the forms of knowl- liberalization hypothesis. Political-economy edge that make objects visible and available theories approach breaking point when they for governing. In Foucault’s terms, govern- have to account for the observable empirical mentality refers to a distinctive modality for fact that, contrary to the objective view they exercising power, one which is not reducible project onto the ‘neoliberal project’, it is to ‘the state’. Governmentality is understood found that states have not straightforwardly to work ‘at a distance’ by seeking to shape withdrawn from welfare provision or other ‘the conduct of conduct’. This in turn implies forms of social regulation at all. Faced that governmentality refers to a wide range with this inconvenience, Peck and Tickell of points of application, including fields of (2002) conjure up a neat conceptual distinc- action not ordinarily thought of as political, tion between what they call the ‘roll-back’ such as medicine, education, religion, or phase of neoliberalism and the ‘roll-out’ phase. popular culture. The roll-out phase is triggered by the ongoing Governmentality is a notion that develops need of state actors to manage the crises gen- Foucault’s distinctive approach to the ana- erated by the roll-back phase. This is a selec- lysis of power relations. His work not only tive deployment of the Polanyian theme of relocates power, dispersing it away from sov- embedding and disembedding. It is used to ereign actions of centralized state agencies. suggest that contemporary processes of active It rethinks the type of action through which state-building around issues of welfare, crime, power is exercised (see Brown, 2006b). In family policy, urban order, participation and fundamental respects, the significance of the cultural inclusion are still best understood as notion of governmentality for social theory the natural extensions of an ideology that is turns on the interpretation of just what sort supposed to be based on a straightforward of theory of action this notion presupposes. opposition between state and market. This section and the following explore just This distinction between roll-back and where this significance lies. roll-out phases makes neoliberalization look Lemke (2002) argues that Foucault’s work less like a ‘tendential’ path of development on governmentality provides a means of under- than a tendentious theoretical projection of a standing the relationships between knowledge,

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strategies of power and technologies of the and view their relationship in terms of con- self that can usefully augment narratives tradictory movements of deregulation and of neoliberalism. From this perspective, reregulation; they also assume that ‘dis- neoliberalism is understood as ‘a political course’ is a representational concept, and rationality that tries to render the social focus upon how ‘discourses’ are theorized domain economic and to link a reduction differentially and ‘materialized’ in particular in (welfare) state services and security sys- contexts. In contrast, governmentality refers tems to the increasing call for “personal res- to modalities of power that stretch far beyond ponsibility” and “self-care”’ (Lemke, 2001: ‘the state’; and ‘discourse’ is not a represen- 203). On this understanding, governmental- tational system so much as a distinctive con- ity is a concept that augments the political- cept of action, referring to the combination economy approaches outlined in the previous of technologies, means of representation and section. For example, Ong’s (1999) account fields of possibility. of the distinctive forms of governmentality Despite the underlying philosophical dif- deployed by ‘post-developmental’ states ferences between governmentality and revolves around the assumption that various Marxist political economy, Foucault’s notion regulatory regimes manipulate cultural dis- has become an important reference point courses to selectively mould people into cer- in recent debates about neoliberalization tain sorts of economic subjects consistent (Larner, 2003; Barnett, 2005). If there is such with the objectives of particular national a thing as a neoliberal project, then it is strategies of accumulation. Jessop (2007) has assumed that it must work by seeking to also argued that the convergence between bring into existence a great many neoliberal Marxism and governmentality studies fol- subjects (cf. Barnett et al., 2008). Work on lows from the mutually supportive emphases this topic assumes that extending the range of the two approaches: of activities that are commodified, commer- while Marx seeks to explain the why of capital cialized and marketized necessarily implies accumulation and state power, Foucault’s analyses that people’s subjectivities need to be retooled of disciplinarity and governmentality try to explain and reworked– as active consumers, entre- the how of economic exploitation and political preneurial subjects or empowered partici- domination (2007: 40) pants (see e.g. Bondi, 2005; Gökariksel and This formulation acknowledges Foucault’s Mitchell, 2005; Mitchell, 2003, 2006; Sparke, own observation that he was concerned with 2006a; Walkerdine, 2005). In this interpre- the ‘how’ of power, but assumes that this tation, the dispersal of power implied by descriptive focus merely augments the the notion of governmentality is re-centred explanatory project of Marxist political econ- around a sovereign conception of state action, omy. What is elided in this move is a funda- now able to reach out all the more effectively mental philosophical difference between into all sorts of arenas in order to secure the these two approaches: the concept of govern- conditions of its own (il)legitimacy. mentality implies an analysis that focuses on The reduction of governmentality to a the description of practices instead of causes mechanism of subjectification marks the point and explanations. at which Foucault’s historical, genealogical The Marxist and Foucauldian approaches approach to issues of subject formation is are not necessarily as easily reconciled as it subordinated to presentist functionalism of might appear. There are two main areas of theories of neoliberalization. This reduction difference between these approaches: their follows from the ambivalence around subject respective understandings of the state and of formation in the formalized models of gov- discourse (Traub-Werner, 2007: 1444–46). ernmentality that have developed Foucault’s Political-economy approaches assume fairly ideas. Rose’s (1999) analysis of ‘advanced static models of ‘the state’ and ‘the market’, liberal governmentality’ argues that forms of

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‘social’ government, of which the classical seek to get people to comply with projects Keynesian welfare state stands as the exemplar, of rule or identify with subject positions. are being supplanted by the ‘de-socialization’ This is in large part because the Foucauldian of modes of governing. The rationalities approach to neoliberalism continues to con- of advanced liberal welfare reform ‘take the strue governmentality in terms of a ‘politics ethical reconstruction of the welfare recipient of subjection’ (Clarke, 2004d: 70–71). Such as their central problem’ (1999: 263). They an assumption leads almost automatically seek to govern people by regulating the choices to the conclusion that neoliberalism degrades made by autonomous actors in the context any residual potential for public action of their everyday, ordinary commitments to inherent in liberal democracy (e.g. Brown, friends, family and community. This ration- 2003). ality is visible in the proliferation of the Equipped with the concept of governmen- registers of empowerment and improvement, tality, this sort of presentation of neoliberal- in which subjects participating in welfare or ism is able to avoid any serious consideration development programmes are geared towards of what sort of action can be exercised on transforming the relationships that subjects subjects through acting on them ‘at a dis- have with themselves (Cruickshank, 1999; tance’. The idea that governmentality is a Li, 2007). distinctive mode of political rule that seeks In analyses of advanced liberal govern- to hail into existence its preferred subjects, mentality, these shifts in political rationality which are then only left with the option are the result of the efforts of a diverse set of ‘resistance’, needs to be treated with con- of actors pursuing plural ends. They do not siderable scepticism. Understood as a mec- reflect the aims of a singular, coherent neo- hanism of subjection, governmentality is liberal project pursued through the agency of assumed to work through the operation ‘the state’. This emphasis is lost in the func- of norms. However, Foucauldian theory is tionalist appropriation of governmentality to chronically unable to acknowledge the work bolster theories of neoliberalization. This is of communicative rationalities in making compounded by the tendency in this work any action-through-norms possible (Hacking, to presume that the description of political 2004). Theories of governmentality consist- rationalities also describes the actual accom- ently fail to specify adequately the ‘looping plishment of subject effects. The vocabulary effects’ between knowledge technologies, of theorists of neoliberal governmentality practices, and subject formation which are is replete with terms such as ‘elicit’, ‘pro- implied by the idea of ‘governing at a dis- mote’, ‘foster’, ‘attract’, ‘guide’, ‘encourage’ tance’ (Barnett, 2001). This failure leads to and so on: the supposition that governmentality works through representational modes of subjec- The key feature of the neo-liberal rationality is the congruence it endeavours to achieve between a tification rather than through the practical responsible and moral individual and an economic- ordering of fields of strategic and communi- rational actor. It aspires to construct prudent sub- cative action. At the very most, the govern- jects whose moral quality is based on the fact that mentality approach implies a probabilistic they rationally assess the costs and benefits of a relationship between regulatory rationalities certain sort as opposed to other alternative acts (Lemke, 2001: 201). of rule and the transformations of subjec- tivities, mediated by the rules of chance The point to underscore here is the empha- (Agrawal, 2005: 161–3). It might even imply sis on a rationality that endeavours and a reorientation of analysis towards under- aspires to bring about certain subject effects. standing the assemblage of dispersed, singu- Narratives of the emergence of neoliberal lar acts rather than based on psycho-social governmentality display little sense of just processes of individual subjection (Barnett whether and how governmental programmes et al., 2008).

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The recuperation of governmentality as subjectivities are normatively self-interested a theory of subject formation, modelled on egoists (Du Gay, 2005). For example, Isin Althusserian theories of interpellative hailing, (2004) argues that the distinctive style of overlooks the distinctive modality of action problematizing contemporary subjects of through which Foucault addresses questions rule is in terms of so many ‘neurotic subjects’ of subjectivity. Whereas liberalism and faced with various risks and hazards. One neoliberalism are understood in political- implication of this style of problematizing economy approaches as market ideologies, subjects is that state agencies continue to be from the governmentality perspective liberal- the objects of demands to take responsibility ism (and by extension neoliberalism) should for monitoring such neurotic subjects or properly refer to a particular problematiza- securing them from harm. tion of governing, and in particular the prob- In this section we have seen how the lematization of the task of governing free third of the approaches to conceptualizing subjects. While a free-market ideology might neoliberalism identified by Larner (2000), imply a problematization of free subjects, which appeals to the concept of governmen- it does not follow that the problematization tality, can be more or less easily subsumed of free subjects is always and everywhere into the prevalent political-economy inter- reducible to the imperatives of free-market pretation. The assumption that governmen- ideologies. Ong (2007) suggests, for exam- tality is a concept that refers to the inculcation ple, a definition of neoliberalism in which of certain sorts of mentality into subjects long-established technologies for administer- is the prevalent interpretation of govern- ing subjects for self-mastery are only contin- mentality in geography’s usage of this con- gently articulated with projects directed at cept to bolster theories of neoliberalization, securing profitability. But this clarification not least in the proliferation of work on still presumes that neoliberalism extends neoliberal subjects. The marriage of political and reproduces itself primarily through economy and governmentality therefore a politics of subjection (see also Brown, generates a shared space of debate that 2006a). It might be better to suppose that the defines state-of-the-art research into neo- distinctive focus in governmentality studies liberalization (Barnett, 2005). Whereas, in on modes of problematization should reori- the political-economy approach, discourses ent analysis to the forms of what Foucault are treated as expressive of other levels (1988) once called practices of ‘ethical prob- of determination, in the governmentality lematization’. This would direct analytical approach political economic processes recede attention to investigating the conditions ‘for into the background; and whereas political- individuals to recognize themselves as par- economy approaches privilege class relations ticular kinds of persons and to reflect upon over other social relations, the governmen- their conduct – to problematize it – such that tality approach reduces the social field to a they may work upon and transform them- plane of subjectification. But these differ- selves in certain ways and towards particular ences converge around a shared assumption goals’ (Hodges, 2002: 457). that ‘reproduction happens’: that subjects Two things follow from this reorientation. live out their self-governing subjection as Firstly, it presumes that subjectivity is the ascribed by governmental rationalities, or product of situated rationalities of practice, subordinate classes live out their regulatory rather than the representational medium of roles as ascribed by hegemonic projects of interpellative recognition (Hacking, 2002). consent (Clarke, 2004c). And so it is that ‘the Secondly, it implies that the proposition that social’ is reduced to being the repository of a liberal governmentality seeks to construct mysterious force of resistance waiting to be self-regulating subjectivities should not be activated by the revelatory force of academic too easily reduced to the proposition that demystification.

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TRANSFORMING THE RATIONALITIES realm is not simply an effect of top-down OF THE PUBLIC REALM projects to privatize and individualize the public realm meeting the residual resistance Emergent rationalities of embedded solidarities and loyalties of national-welfare cultures. It is also the prod- A shared assumption of the political-economy uct of emergent mobilizations for community and the governmentality approaches is the participation, equality struggles and cultural idea that neoliberalism dissolves established representation. Changes in policy paradigms patterns of public life. From the political- and welfare regimes are as much ad hoc economy perspective, the public realm is responses to a range of secular social trends progressively constricted through privatiza- as they are a motivated top-down project of tion, the marketization of public services, the rolling back the state. These trends include introduction of competitive pressures into (Clarke, 2004b): public institutions, and the infusion of private financial arrangements into public institu- ● changing consumer expectations, involving shifts tions. The governmentality perspective adds in expectations towards public entitlements that to this a view of the progressive individuali- follow from the generalization of consumerism; zation of subjectivity, as the public identity ● the decline of deference, involving shifts in con- of ‘citizen’ is replaced by proliferating dis- ventions and hierarchies of taste, trust, access courses of consumer choice and personal and expertise; ● the refusals of the subordinated, referring to the responsibility.1 Narratives of neoliberalism emergence of anti-paternalist attitudes found in, therefore reiterate a common refrain about the for example, women’s health movements or anti- decline of public virtues, collective solidari- psychiatry movements; ties, caring values and common institutions. ● the development of the politics of difference, These narratives overestimate the degree to involving the emergence of discourses of institu- which existing configurations of public life tional discrimination based on gender, sexuality, have been simply dissolved by neoliberal race and disability. onslaught. For example, the range of organi- zational reforms in the public sector through This range of factors has disrupted the which ‘neoliberalism’ is apparently manifest ways in which welfare agencies think about in the United Kingdom, while certainly shaped inequality, helping to generate the emergence by efforts to deflate notions of a singular col- of contested inequalities, in which policies lective public interest, have generated split aimed at addressing inequalities of class and representations of public subjects. The public income develop an ever more expansive now appears as taxpayers, supporting a logic dynamic of expectation according to which of curbing spending, curtailing entitlements public services should address other kinds and maximizing efficiency; as consumers, of inequality as well. In short, rather than supporting agendas to maximize the respon- a simple shift from state provision to priva- siveness to user needs; as citizens, concerned tized markets, welfare regimes have been with collective values of equity and fairness; reordered through redistributions of com- or as scroungers, threatening to undermine modified and de-commodified provision public values of fair shares and equal entitle- and different combinations of social insur- ments (Clarke, 2005; Newman, 2004). In turn, ance, social assistance and taxation (Esping- a range of new agencies has proliferated, not Andersen, 1996). The social relations of welfare least those focused on auditing and inspecting consumption have certainly been reordered other agencies in the interests of ‘the public’. in highly unequal ways in the process. But This might, of course, all be subsumed the political dynamics of this process is not beneath the banner of ‘roll-out’ neoliberal- well captured by a simple narrative of state ism. But this differentiation of the public retreat under neoliberal onslaught.

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What from one perspective is interpreted as governmentality suggests a refinement as a motivated project of neoliberalization of what is meant by referring to neoliberal- might be better understood as a much more ism as a ‘political rationality’. It suggests an broadly based populist reorientation of con- interpretation of the rationalities that shape temporary politics, policy and popular cul- policy interventions as emergent effects of tures. The possibility that what is too readily ongoing processes of interaction, involving identified as ‘neoliberalization’ might be con- various forms of cooperative behaviour such stituted by the mainstreaming of movement as bargaining or compromising. Thinking of agendas is yet to be fully explored (Larner, political rationalities as emergent qualities 2007; cf. Leitner et al. (2007). Remaining of dynamic interactions suggests, however, a focused on neoliberalization means that all rather more pluralist theoretical imagination sorts of emergent political formations remain than critical theories of neoliberalism are marginalized in this set of debates. These willing to countenance. would include environmental politics and the politics of sustainability; new forms of con- sumer activism oriented by an ethics of assist- What are markets good for? ance and global solidarity; the identity politics of sexuality related to demands for changes The idea that we should focus on the emergent in modes of health-care provision and other public rationalities of contemporary govern- welfare services. These and other movements mentalities, rather than presuming a top-down are indicative of the emergence of a ‘politics imposition of a largely unchanging ideology, of choice’ that is reshaping relations between follows from taking seriously the type of states, civil society and capital (see Norris, action that Foucault’s own account of govern- 1998). Much of this emergent politics focuses mentality presupposes. Governmentality refers on issues of consumption, and is therefore not to mechanisms of subjection, but to ‘gov- easily misinterpreted as just another aspect of erning the conduct of conduct’, that is, to a neoliberalized roll-out of market rationality. efforts aimed at structuring the field of action But this misses the extent to which consump- of other actors. The analytics of governmen- tion is re-politicized in these movements as tality rests upon a conception of interaction in an entry point into transformative networks of terms of ‘strategic games of liberty’, ‘in which distribution and production which are indi- some try to control the conduct of others, who cative of evolving new political economies of in turn try to avoid allowing their conduct to public life (Murray, 2004). be controlled or try to control the conduct of In short, theories of neoliberalism are not the others’ (Foucault, 1997: 299). The ‘action very good at describing or explaining the on the action of others’ that defines govern- contemporary political-economic landscape. mentality as a distinctive rationality of rule Larner and Walters (2004) and Larner et al. is theorized by reference to actors’ efforts to (2007) deploy the concept of governmen- realize their own ends through the enrolment tality not to explain how the functionalist of the strategic capacities of other actors. requirements of neoliberal ideology are Foucault differentiated between three senses sutured through subject formation, but rather of strategic relations: a fairly neutral under- as a means of accounting for the post facto standing of means–ends relations; a sense of assemblage of a diverse range of imperatives taking advantage of others; and a sense of and programmes into a mobile governmental obtaining victory in struggle (2000: 346). And rationality. This seems more in tune with the he endorsed the idea that these three senses ‘cock-up, foul-up’ approach to theorizing covered the whole field of power relations, political processes (Mann, 1993: 53) to which where strategy was understood as ‘the choice Foucault’s genealogical approach seems well of winning solutions’ (ibid.) in situations of attuned. This interpretation of globalization confrontation or competition.

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Foucault’s notion of governmentality there- of jurisprudence; in public choice theory fore rests on a conception in which social to bureaucratic dynamics and constitutional interaction is always modelled narrowly on design; and in so-called ‘new public manage- strategic action (Honneth, 1991), and has ment’ to the reconfiguration of administrative difficulty admitting the possibility of any systems. This economizing of the social and type of normatively inflected communicative of the state is not merely ‘ideological’: it is action (Hacking, 2004). Furthermore, the rooted in the methodological practices of analytics of governmentality only admits to a microeconomic reasoning, decision theory one-dimensional view of strategic action as and game theory, which allows various activ- always competitive action, having difficulty ities to be modeled on the principle that all in accounting for observed forms of coopera- human behaviour is shaped by economic tive strategic action that are the outcome of values of self-interested utility maximization. communicatively steered agreement. Foucault’s attention to this emergent tradi- To help us see the importance of thinking tion of political economy is not ‘eccentric’ more carefully about issues of rational action, when compared to the ideas of Hayek or it is useful to consider Foucault’s own foray Friedman, which geographers assume to be onto the territory most favoured by theorists so singularly influential (cf. Sparke, 2006b). of neoliberalism, in his lecture course on This attention might actually throw more ‘the birth of biopolitics’ (see Foucault, 2000: insight on the dynamics of state restructuring 73–9; Lemke, 2001; Guala, 2006). Here upon which theorists of neoliberalism focus Foucault lays out an analysis of the internal their attention. The persistent focus on ‘free- relationship between the emergence of gov- market fundamentalism’ in geographers’ ernmentality as a distinctively modern tech- theorizations of neoliberalism leads to rather nology of governing and ‘liberalism’ as a tortuous formulations of the observed dis- distinctively modern form of political reason junctures between putative theory (reducing concerned with the limits of government. the state) and actual practice (all sorts of state Emphasizing that there is no single version intervention). This betrays a conceptual and of liberal governmentality, Foucault contrasts normative investment in static idealizations two traditions of post-war liberal thought: a of models of the ‘state’ and the ‘market’, and German school of so-called Ordo-liberalism, a preference for analysis of all relationships that defined the concept of the social market; in terms of ‘contradiction’. Foucault’s focus and the economic liberalism associated with on liberalism as a rationality of government the Chicago School. In Foucault’s view, what enables him to point to the extent to which is most distinctive about this second line ‘neoliberal’ ideas do not, in theory, imply of ‘neoliberal’ thinking is that it seeks ‘to any less state action. They do, however, extend the rationalities of the market, the imply a reformulation of the principles and schemes of analysis it proposes, and the deci- objectives of state activities according to sionmaking criteria it suggests to areas that economistic assumptions of individual and are not exclusively or primarily economic. corporate behaviour. Far from assuming that For example, the family and birth policy, or the rhetoric of market efficiency and con- delinquency and penal policy’ (2000: 79). sumer choice are always and everywhere The extension of economic rationality into indicative of a privatizing and deregulatory all areas of social life, which Foucault identi- agenda, it is important to recognize the fies as a feature of Chicago School neoliber- degree to which this vocabulary and an alism, is, in fact, just one aspect of a broader attendant set of technologies of reform pro- reinvention of ‘political economy’, in which vide ‘new ways of managing government the reasoning of microeconomics has been agencies’ (Slater and Tonkiss, 2001: 141). applied to all sorts of social phenomena: in In short, Foucault leads us to ask what it is the Law and Economics movement to issues that markets are supposed to be good for.

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What problematizations do market ration- should lead to a broadening of focus when it alities respond to? Hindess (2002: 134–5) comes to tracing the intellectual genealogy of suggests that for liberalism, understood as a contemporary policy paradigms. Rather than political rationality of government, the market focusing overwhelmingly on free-market is the exemplary form of free interaction, the economists and explicit agendas for reducing model for demonstrating how the activities of state intervention, which by Marxist and numerous individuals can be coordinated regulationalist theorists’ own admission can without central authority. This idealization of be of little help in understanding how the the market as a decentralized mechanism of practices of ‘neoliberalization’ actually get government operates at two levels: firstly, in played out, it might be better to look farther the immediate present, individuals in markets afield. One obvious focus should be on are governed by the reactions of others with the genealogy of ‘rational choice’ theories in whom they interact; in the longer term, this social science. In so far as these traditions are sort of interaction with others leads to the considered at all in theories of neoliberaliza- internalization of standards which individuals tion, they are dismissed as adjuncts of ‘free use to regulate their own behaviour, so that market fundamentalism’ and the supposed market interaction is understood to be a good hegemony of ‘orthodox economics’ (Peck, way of inculcating virtues such as prudence 2005). But ‘free-market economics’ does not and self-control. This set of assumptions provide a theory of administrative reform or implies a wide spectrum of governmental of the management of public services, nor strategies. On the one side, these assumptions of constitutional design or of democratic can justify interventions that seek to govern governance. In contrast, public choice theory or ‘make-up’ subjects able to engage in this does. For that reason, public choice theory sort of interaction. On the other side, these has been highly significant in the rise of ‘gov- assumptions can imply using markets as the ernment by the market’ (Self, 1993). Reading means of actually instilling market virtues. this tradition symptomatically throws light This is the understanding of the market as a upon the reordering of the rationalities of model for coordinating the actions of dispersed public administration, in contrast to any subjects that leads to the distinctive under- simple decline or dissolution of the public standing of advanced liberalism in Foucauldian realm. governmentality studies. Advanced liberalism So what is public choice theory? Public is not defined as an ideology of free markets choice theory provides a descriptive and nor- and minimal states, but as a set of discourses mative methodology for modelling a range of that invoke the power of choice, modelled on collective decision-making processes: economics, as a primary motivator of human why people join interest groups, how voters action in fields of interacting free subjects. choose between parties at election time, how This is a form of discourse that ‘effectively coalitions form in committees and legislatures, dissolves economy’s outside’ (Engelmann, how bureaucracies make policy and how sub- 2005: 33). But it does not necessarily imply national governments deliver policy outputs to citizens. (Dunleavy, 1991: 2) that activities of the state should be transferred to the market, only that state activities be reor- Public choice theory treats government offi- dered around systems shaped by ‘market’ cials, civil servants and elected representa- principles. These might vary from introducing tives as individual actors who respond to ‘competition’, treating users as ‘customers’ or economic incentives – people involved in col- ‘consumers’, ‘decentralizing’ authority, or lective action are just as they are assumed to using audit technologies to encourage a focus act in markets, as self-interested agents. This on ‘accountability’ or ‘outcomes’. work is referred to as ‘public choice’ because Foucault’s attention to the economizing of the choices that voters make, while deploying the social in Chicago-style political economy the same motivations and rationalities as

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consumers in the market, are decisions This suggests that, when it is understood as a and preferences about ‘public’ matters – the political rationality of contemporary govern- design of constitutions, the make-up of gov- mentality, one can read public choice theory ernment, and so on. symptomatically as providing an insight into Public choice theory focuses on the asym- the relational fields through which policies metric distribution of information in market easily labelled as ‘neoliberal’ are actually relations, broadly defined, which creates shaped. For starters, we might observe that incentives for the party with more informa- the argument that neoliberal free-market ide- tion to cheat the party with less. In the appli- ology mobilizes an intuitive but seductive cation of these ideas to political processes in rhetoric of ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ under- liberal democracy, public choice theory gen- estimates the degree to which contemporary erates a rather dismal view of modern poli- governance-talk is all about ‘delivery’, ‘par- tics – dubbed ‘politics without the romance’ ticipation’ and ‘empowerment’. This voca- by one leading exponent (Buchanan, 1984). bulary is indicative of a problematization Public choice theory is, however, just one that revolves around the difficulty of making strand of a broader tradition of modern social bureaucratic and administrative systems res- science that deploys economic concepts of ponsive and accountable to diverse users. In rationality to social and political issues. For short, this is an approach to issues of public example, in Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility administration that treats market-based solu- theorem, which is formative of social choice tions not simply in terms of efficiency crite- theory and welfare economics, the demon- ria, but as means of achieving ‘democratic’ stration of the dependency of any collective objectives of accountability and responsive- preference function on the medium of aggre- ness (Armbrüster, 2005). gating individual preferences seems to chal- If one understands this new tradition of lenge understandings of democratic legitimacy political economy as one variant of a family based on popular sovereignty. In Mancur of political rationalities of liberal govern- Olson’s seminal account of the logic of col- mentality, then its most pertinent feature is lective action, asymmetries of information the methodological analysis of both market and problems of free-riding mean that it is and non-market interactions as networks more likely that small groups will organize of principals and agents (Przeworski, 2003). and exert influence than larger ones. When Principal–agent relations are those where the applied to the analysis of welfare systems, ‘principal’ (a customer, a citizen, a service these forms of reasoning lead to a view user) offers the ‘agent’ (a seller, a politician, of bureaucracies and bureaucrats as always a bureaucrat) a contract to work for him or seeking to maximize their own advantage, her. The analysis of principal–agent relations through rent-seeking for example, and thereby focuses in particular upon situations where reducing the efficiency of distributive out- asymmetric information between principals comes. This leads to the stronger claim that and agents leads to problems of how to align public goods are actually under-supplied by the interests of the two parties: it is assumed state bureaucracies, which are prone to cap- that there is a problem in motivating agents ture by special interest groups. to act on behalf of principals rather than Public choice theory therefore belongs to to use their advantageous position to bolster what is a much broader tradition of ‘bureau- their own self-interest. This problematization critique’. Its development as an academic field leads therefore to a search for incentive struc- has certainly been closely associated with a tures that will encourage agents to align their right-wing political inflection (cf. Dunleavy, own self-interests with forms of action which 1991; Dryzek, 1992). But the broader tradi- will also be of benefit to their clients. It also tion of bureau-critique stretches across recasts the role of elected officials as cham- the political spectrum (see Du Gay, 2000). pions of the interests of public service users,

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seeking to rein in and discipline indifferent than pawns. The preference for ‘market’ and inflexible ‘producer’ interests in bureauc- reforms follows from these two assumptions: racies and expert professions. Reading the if it is believed that workers are primarily knaves rise of public choice theory and related fields and that consumers ought to be king, [then it fol- such as ‘new public management’ sympto- lows that] the market is the way in which the matically, then, brings back into view the pursuit of self-interest by providers can be cor- constitutive role of relational fields of politi- ralled to serve the interests of consumers. (LeGrand, 2006: 9). cal action in reshaping relationships between different institutions of the state, and their This suggests that the distinction between interactions with each other and with other Keynesian social democracy and neoliberal- actors in civil society. ism is simply a difference between abstract, Thinking seriously about the political substantive principles: egalitarianism (and rationalities of liberal governmentality should the state as a vehicle of social justice) versus lead to the recognition of how assumptions liberty (and the state as a threat to this). Just about motivation and agency help shape as significant is a practical difference between public policy and institutional design. For two sets of beliefs about motivation and example, market reforms in social policy in agency (ibid.: 12). ‘Neoliberals’ tend to think the UK have been partly driven by fiscal pres- of motivation in terms of self-interest and sures dictated by ‘neoliberal’ macroeconomic egoism, ‘social democrats’ in terms of knights policies. However, just as important ‘was a and altruism. And ‘neoliberals’ tend to pre- fundamental shift in policy-makers’ percep- sume a capacity for autonomous action, tions concerning motivation and agency’ whereas ‘social democrats’ presume this (LeGrand, 2006: 4). LeGrand suggests a styl- capacity is conditioned and therefore can be ized distinction between two models of moti- justifiably cultivated by state action. vation and two models of agency. This stylized characterization of the shift- ing ‘rationalities’ of social policy in the UK ● If it is assumed that people are wholly motivated indicates that, far from ‘the market’ always by self-interest, they are thought of as knaves; being presented as an alternative realm to be if they are thought of as motivated by public- favoured over ‘the state’, the market is seen spirited altruism, they are knights. as the source for various models of incen- ● If it is assumed that people have little or no capacity for independent action, then they are tives, management and institutional design thought of as pawns; if they are treated as active through which state practices are reconfig- agents, they are thought of as queens. ured. These assumptions are certainly open to criticism (see Bowles and Gintis, 2006; This distinction helps to throw light upon Green and Shapiro, 1994; Mansbridge, 1990; how institutional reconfigurations of welfare Taylor, 2006). But treating them sympto- are shaped by changing assumptions about matically, as indicative of emergent political how state agencies function, how officials are rationalities, underlines the extent to which motivated, to what extent people are agents, the imperatives shaping public policy involve and in particular how agential capacities of reconfiguring relationships between elected recipients can be mobilized to make public politicians, state bureaucracies and user officials more knight-like. LeGrand charac- groups. It also deflates policy paradigms as terizes the post-1979 period of social policy the primary forces driving social change, in the UK as ‘the triumph of the knaves’. It drawing into focus the ways in which poli- involved two related shifts: towards an empir- cies are shaped in a broader relational ical assumption about the knavish tendencies context in which the meanings and content of professionals working in public adminis- of accountability, democracy, entitlement, tration; and towards a normative assumption equality, legitimacy and rights are objects of that users should be treated more like queens political contention.

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A symptomatic reading of the political social formations are reproduced function- rationalities of post-Keynesian public policy ally through various mechanisms of natu- therefore throws light on the claims of public ralization, whether ideological or, in the value embedded in these apparently ‘neolib- Foucauldian inflection, through processes of eral’ discourses, claims that reach beyond subjectification. narrow values of efficiency or personal free- Theories of neoliberalism render ‘the social’ dom to encompass collective goods such as a residual aspect of more fundamental proc- accountability and trust. This not only sug- esses in three ways. Firstly, social practices gests that neoliberalization might be better are reduced to residual, more-or-less resistant thought of as an effect rather than a cause effects of restructuring processes shaped by (cf. Mitchell, 1999), a response to broad the transparent class interests of capital. This secular changes in social formations. It also means that social relations of gender, ethnicity throws light upon the generation of new or race, for example, are considered as con- sites of political contestation. Programmes textual factors shaping the geographically of governance also create new scenes of variable manifestations of general neoliberal- encounter between citizens and ‘the state’ izing tendencies. Secondly, ‘the social’ is also (e.g. Corbridge et al., 2006; Skelcher et al., reduced to a residual effect by being consid- 2005; Barnes et al., 2003) and, by expanding ered only in so far as it is the object of state imperatives to engage in collaboration, con- administration in the interests of economic sultation and participation, they provide efficiency, or to strategies of ‘governmental differential opportunities for actors to enact rationality’. Thirdly, and related to this, ‘the and challenge assigned forms of ‘citizenly’ social’ is construed as the more-or-less manip- agency. ulable surface for ideological normalization or discursive subjectification. This final section throws into relief the normative limitations of theories of neoliber- SO WHAT IS WRONG WITH alism. If neoliberalism is a critics’ term, what NEOLIBERALISM? are the terms of criticism invoked by these theories: what is wrong with neoliberalism? This chapter has suggested various con- The concept of neoliberalization implies ceptual limitations of theories of neoliberal- that neoliberalism is both parasitic on and ism and neoliberalization. These theories corrosive of other social processes, but, as are characterized by static idealizations of already suggested, the source of this doubly the contradictions between ‘the state’ and destructive energy is never quite specified ‘the market’ which actually reiterate the sim- in these theories. The immediate objects plistic views they ascribe to neoliberal pur- of criticism are a range of substantive and ists. They tend to suppose that changes observable social harms: rising levels of in state activities are the outcome of ‘ide- socio-economic inequality; authoritarianism; ational projects’, a view sustained by invok- corrupt government; the concentration of ing expressive concepts of ideology, culturalist wealth. But these immediate objects of criti- conceptions of hegemony, and instrumental cism are seen as inevitable outcomes of a conceptions of discourse. They tend in turn system which has encouraged the disembed- to project a distinctive geographical imagi- ding of economic relations from broader struc- nary of cascading scales and spaces of diffu- tures of normative steering. It is the imputed sion, enabling highly abstract deductions content of neoliberalism as a narrowly indi- about capital accumulation to be articulated vidualistic, egoistic rationality that is the with more concrete notions of the state, source of the status ascribed to it as a ‘strong gender relations, racial formations, and other discourse’, at once parasitic and corrosive. ‘contextual’ factors. And it is assumed that It is on these grounds that neoliberalism is

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viewed as nothing short of ‘a programme to the destruction of previous solidarities, of the methodical destruction of collectives’ unleashing pathologies of anomie, anti-social (Bourdieu, 1998). behaviour and criminality (ibid.: 81). In turn, The view that neoliberalism unleashes the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the pathological human tendencies otherwise state leads to social solidarities being recon- properly held in check by collective conven- structed around other axes, of religion and tions is a distinctive updating of Polanyi’s morality, associationism, and nationalism. view of market capitalism as an unnatural What has been described as the rise of the formation. What is at work here is a theo- ‘movement society’, expressed in the prolif- retical imaginary in which the extension of eration of contentious politics of rights-based accumulation by market exchange is under- struggles and identity politics, Harvey sees as stood to necessarily undermine forms of one aspect of a spread of corrosive social social integration previously knitted together forms triggered by the rolling-back of states. through the state. Theories of neoliberalism In the wake of this rolling-back, ‘[e]very- display an intense ambivalence towards ‘the thing from gangs and criminal cartels, narco- state’. On the one hand, they follow a classi- trafficking networks, mini-mafias and favela cal Marxist view in which the state is a ter- bosses, through community, grassroots and ritorial sovereign systematically involved in non-governmental organizations, to secular the reproduction of capital accumulation. On cults and religious sects proliferate (ibid.: the other, they hark back almost nostalgically 171). These are alternative social forms ‘that to a social democratic view in which the state fill the void left behind as state powers, stands opposed to the market as a counter- political parties, and other institutional forms weight, representing an opposing principle of are actively dismantled or simply wither social integration and political legitimacy. away as centres of collective endeavour and In accepting the same simplistic opposi- of social bonding’ (ibid., 171). tion between individual freedom and social Harvey (2005) suggests his own bundle of justice presented by Hayek, but simply rights as an alternative to the neoliberal reversing the evaluation of the two terms, regime of rights. These include ‘the right to critics of neoliberalism end up presenting life chances’, ‘control over production by highly moralistic forms of analysis of con- the direct producers’, the right ‘to a decent temporary political processes. In resisting the and healthy living environment’, and ‘to col- idealization of the market as the embodiment lective control of common property resources’ of public virtue, they end up embracing an (ibid.: 204). He provides little sense of how equally idealized view of the forum as the the inevitable tensions and trade-offs between alternative figure of collective life (see Elster, these sorts of rights would be negotiated and 1986). For example, while Harvey insists that decided in practice (beyond the reiteration of neoliberalism is a process driven by the aim Marx’s comment that ‘Between equal rights, of restoring class power, he ends his analysis force decides’ as if this were both a matter of by arguing that it is the anti-democratic char- fact and of principle). Harvey’s preference acter of neoliberalism that should be the for ‘substantive’ democracy and social jus- focal point of opposition (Harvey, 2005: 2: tice is associated with a persistent denigra- 205–6). But it is far from clear whether the tion of procedural issues without which any theories of neoliberalism and neoliberaliza- meaningful practice of democracy is unim- tion developed by political economists, aginable. Harvey casts struggles for cultural, sometimes with the help of governmentality civil, sexual or reproductive rights since studies, can contribute to reconstructing a the 1960s as inevitably complicit with the theory and practice of radical democratic ‘neoliberal frame’, favouring ‘individual justice. In Harvey’s analysis, the withdrawal freedoms’ over ‘social justice’ (ibid.: 41–3). of the state is taken for granted, and leads Likewise the emergence of international

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human rights movements and the develop- politics of pluralistic associational life. The ment of non-governmental politics is damned cost of the careless disregard for ‘actually as complicit with the ‘neoliberal frame’ of existing liberalisms’ is to remain blind to individual rights and privatization (ibid.: the diverse strands of egalitarian thought 176–7). This is a travesty of complex politi- about the relationships between democracy, cal movements that have pioneered struggles rights and social justice that one finds in, for social justice along diverse fronts, not for example: post-Rawslian political philo- least when Harvey claims that these move- sophy; post-Habermasian theories of democ- ments have not focused on developing ‘sub- racy, including their feminist variants; various stantive and open democratic governance postcolonial liberalisms; the flowering of structures’ (ibid.: 176). agonistic liberalisms and theories of radical What’s really wrong with neoliberalism, democracy; and the revival of republican for critics who have constructed it as a coher- theories of democracy, freedom and justice. ent object of analysis, is the unleashing of No doubt theorists of neoliberalism would destructive pathologies through the com- see all this as hopelessly trapped within the bined withdrawal of the state and the unfet- ‘neoliberal frame’ of individualism, although, tered growth of market exchange. ‘Individual if one takes this argument to its logical con- freedom’ is presented as a medium of unin- clusion, even Marx’s critique of capitalist hibited hedonism, which if given too much exploitation, dependent as it is on an ideal of free reign undermines the ascetic virtues of self-ownership, is nothing more than a varia- self-denial upon which struggles for ‘social tion on Lockean individual rights. justice’ are supposed to depend. Any serious consideration of democracy, Underwritten by simplistic moral denun- rights and social justice cannot afford to ciations of ‘the market’, these theories push ignore the fields of social science in which aside a series of analytic, explanatory and issues of rationality, motivation and agency normative questions. In the case of both the are most fully theorized. These often turn out Marxist narrative of neoliberalization and the to be fields normally considered too ‘liberal’ Foucauldian analysis of neoliberal govern- for the tastes of critical human geographers mentality, it remains unclear whether either (cf. Sayer, 1995). These fields can serve as of these traditions can provide adequate potential sources for revised understandings resources for thinking about the practical of the tasks of critical theory, ones which problems of democracy, rights and social do not fall back into ahistorical, overly soci- justice. This is not helped by the systematic ologized criticisms of any appearance of denigration in both lines of thought of ‘liber- individualism or self-interest as menacing alism’, a catch-all term used with little dis- the very grounds of public virtue and the crimination. There is a tendency to present common good. Problems of coordination, neoliberalism as the natural end-point or institutional design and justification are cen- rolling-out of a longer tradition of liberal tral to any normatively persuasive and empir- thought – an argument only sustainable ically grounded critical theory of democracy. through the implicit invocation of some For example, the problem central to social notion of a liberal ‘episteme’ covering all choice theory – the difficulty of arriving at varieties and providing a core of meaning. collective preference functions by aggregat- One of the lessons drawn by diverse strands ing individual preferences – is a fundamental of radical political theory from the experi- issue in democratic theory, around which ence of twentieth-century history is that contemporary theories of deliberative democ- struggles for social justice can create new racy are increasingly focused (Goodin, 2003). forms of domination and inequality. It is this Likewise, Amartya Sen’s (2002) critique that leads to a grudging appreciation of liber- of public choice theory’s assumption that alism as a potential source of insight into the people are ‘rational fools’ provides the most

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compelling criticism of the one-dimensional on the one side and poststructuralist political understanding of rationality, motivation and ontologies on the other. As long as this agency upon which orthodox economic and remains the horizon of normative reflection, public policy depends. This critique informs critical human geographers will continue the ‘capabilities approach’ which connects to always know in advance what they are key problems in welfare economics to a theory expected to be critical of but will remain of egalitarian rights and political democracy unable to articulate convincingly what they (Sen, 1999; Corbridge, 2002). These are just are being critical for. two examples of work that takes seriously the problematization of agency, motivation and rationality in ‘rational choice’ social science in order to move social theory beyond the con- NOTE soling idea that rampant individualism can be tamed by moral injunctions of the public good 1 Foucault’s work is a rather ambiguous reference and weak claims about social construction. for any critique of the dissolution of the public realm under the force of neoliberalism, in so far as it is The ascendancy of ‘neoliberalism’ as a calls into question the validity of the normative vision theoretical object of approbation is sympto- of public rationality that is meant to be embodied matic of the negative interpretation of ‘criti- in those institutional configurations menaced by cal’ in contemporary critical human geography. neoliberalism. Being critical, in this view, requires that one has a clear-sighted view of an object that one is critical of. Theories of neoliberalism pro- vide a compelling picture of such an object REFERENCES by providing an account of the displacement of socially embedded practices of reciprocity Agrawal, A. (2005) Environmentality. Durham, and their redistribution by the pathological NC: Duke University Press. rationalities of market exchange. This style of Armbrüster, T. (2005) ‘Bureaucracy and the controversy between liberal interventionism theorizing leads to a mode of critical analysis and non-interventionism’, in P. Du Gay (ed.), in which change is always interpreted in zero- The Values of Bureaucracy. Oxford: Oxford sum terms, as the encroachment of neoliberal University Press. pp. 63–85. rationalities into realms of social solidarity. It Barnett, C. (2001) ‘Culture, geography and is a style of analysis that makes it impossible the arts of government’, Environment and to acknowledge diverse dynamics of change, Planning D: Society and Space, 19: 7–24. and in turn remains blind to emergent public Barnett, C. (2005) ‘The consolations of ‘neolib- rationalities: eralism’’, Geoforum, 36: 7–12. Barnett, C., Cloke, P., Clarke, N. and Malpass, If you believe in the implacable domination of A. (2008) ‘The elusive subjects of neoliberal- economic forces, you cannot believe in the possi- bility of social movements; at the very best, you ism’, Cultural Studies, 22: 624–653. will see the movement of society as an expression Barnes, M., Newman, J., Knops, A. and Sullivan, of the systems’ internal contradictions, or as a H. (2003) ‘Constituting “the public” in public manifestation of objective suffering and poverty. participation’, Public Administration, 81: (Touraine, 2001: 3) 379–99. Neoliberalism as an object of analysis is Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001) Individualization. London: Sage. certainly a critics’ term. The explicit formu- Bondi, L. (2005) ‘Working the spaces of neolib- lation of neoliberalism into an object of theo- eral subjectivity’, Antipode, 37: 497–514. retical analysis in critical human geography Bondi, L. and Laurie, N. (2005) ‘Introduction: has been associated with the turning-in of Working the spaces of neoliberalism: intellectual curiosity around a very narrow Activism, professionalisation and incorpora- space, bounded by Marxist political economy tion’, Antipode, 37: 394–401.

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