Policy & Politics • vol 45 • no 3 • 343–60 • © Policy Press 2017 • #PPjnl @policy_politics Print ISSN 0305 5736 • Online ISSN 1470 8442 • https://doi.org/10.1332/030557316X14800750043260 Accepted for publication 13 September 2016 • First published online 25 November 2016
article Neoliberalism as an object of political analysis: an ideology, a mode of regulation or a governmentality?
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Christopher Byrne, c.byrne2@exeter.ac.uk University of Exeter, UK This article aims to bring some definitional clarity to the study of neoliberalism by investigating the three most common conceptualisations of the project as an ideology, mode of regulation, and market-oriented governmentality. It is argued that the heretofore somewhat marginalised governmentality perspective offers the most untapped potential for new analytical insights due to its ability to avoid three problems apparent in the literature on neoliberalism: the conflation of the governmental and hegemonic politics of neoliberalism; the prevalence of overly simplistic periodisations of neoliberalism; and, the failure to grasp the importance of processes of subjectification to the practical functioning of neoliberalism. keywords neoliberalism • hegemony • governmentality • Open Public Services To cite this article: Byrne, C (2017) Neoliberalism as an object of political analysis: an ideology, a mode of regulation or a governmentality?, Policy & Politics, vol 45, no 3, 343–60, DOI: 10.1332/030557316X14800750043260
Introduction In an article reflecting on the status of academic debates on neoliberalism written in the wake of the global financial crisis, John Clarke (2008, 135) argued that the concept of neoliberalism ‘is now so overused that it should be retired’. Peck (2013, 133), another prominent observer of neoliberalism, has similarly railed against the promiscuousness of the concept: Neoliberalism has always been an unloved, rascal concept, mainly deployed with pejorative intent, yet at the same time apparently increasingly promiscuous in application. For some, it is the spider at the center of the hegemonic web that is worldwide market rule. For others, it is a bloated, jumbo concept of little utility, or worse, a cover for crudely deterministic claims tantamount to conspiracy theorising or closet structuralism. Poststructuralist critics, even those that use the term, are wont to argue with some justification that the concept of neoliberalism is too often ‘inflated’ or ‘overblown’…and that it is frequently deployed in a manner that less than 343
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