Neoliberalism: Policy, Ideology, Governmentality

Abstract

"neo-liberalism is associated with the preference for a minimalist state. Markets are understood to be a better way of oragnizing economic activity because they are associated with competition, economic efficiency and choice" (5). Considers three ways of understanding neoliberalism: as a policy framework, as an ideology and as an expression of governmentality. Understanding NL as a policy framework suggests that neoliberalism is a coherent program developed and executed from above by a small elite with little need to consider the behavior or outlook of society at large. Author argues this is a flawed way of looking at NL because: (1) NL is not as coherent as one thinks (e.g., the championing of individual autonomy is often accompanied by the championing of the family as a sacred unit); (2) the program has been adopted by governments with very different political orientations not belonging to the same elite; (3) [and most crucially for my PF mag project] it doesn't take into account the massive shift in attitudes and expectations that citizens must undergo in order to accept the new neoliberal reality (e.g., accept fewer services from the state and embrace the need to continuously manage one's own finances) Understanding NL as an ideology takes as its theoretical framework Gramsci's hegemony. Hall suggests that neoliberalism (specifically Thatcherism) is an ideology that had the "ability to constitute subject positions from which its discourses about the world made sense" (9). This PoV takes into account the sociatal component of the NL shift, however according to the author it still overestimates the coherence of NL as a phenomenon. Understanding NL as an expression of governmentality (G). g is a post-structuralist concept that suggests that discourses have the powerful capacity to constitute "institutions practices and identites in contradictory and disjunctive ways" (12). G argues in the case of NL that "while neoliberalism may mean less government, it does not follow that there is less governance. While on the one hand neo-liberalism problematizes the state and is concerned to specify its limits through the invocation of individual choice, on the other hand it involves forms of governance that encourage both institutions and individuals to conform to the norms of the market" (12). less government, more governance (think Wisconsin program). NL is therefore a program that asks political subjects to be entrepreneurial. Author argues that in NZL feminist and Maori groups opposed NL and that this opposition impacted how NL was articulated. So, for example, Maori groups embraced the NL tendency for devolution of power to move political authority to the group level.