Neoliberalism and social movements (original) (raw)
Related papers
Revisting the global and local upheavals of 1968
Counterfutures, 2018
1968 was a year of momentous global revolt against elites in both East and West. This article argues that 1968 is noteworthy not so much for the events of 1968 in themselves, but for helping spawn or revive a broad variety of movements which continue to have wide-ranging repercussions today. This was particularly the case in Aotearoa where, by global standards, events in 1968 were tranquil, yet a prolonged spike in dissent developed afterwards during the long 1970s. Some contend that 1968 was an individualist and cultural revolt that sowed the seeds for neoliberalism. This article argues that such an interpretation neglects the strong collective, socialist, working class, and anti-colonial dimensions of 1968 and beyond. Neoliberalism was more of a reaction to 1968 than its product.
Reading neoliberalism as a social movement from above
Theomai, 2017
In this article we explore the relationship between Marxist theory and social movements, in particular how this relationship works in the specific historical period that we call the twilight of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism is in a hegemonic crisis. In the political-economic conditions since the global financial crisis of 2008, it has lost much of its ideological capacity for subject mobilisation. This in turn has made its innate coercive, disciplinary and panoptic tendencies more apparent to the popular classes, sparking populist rebellions from both the left and right. Davidson (2016) coined the term “Crisis Neoliberalism” to demarcate this era. I feel that this marks a larger break and prefer the term New Feudalism to emphasise that in the wake of the great transformation global society saw from roughly 1973-2008, we are transitioning out of liberal democratic capitalist order and into a mode of production which is qualitatively new. More on that later. Three global crises: climate change, austerity and militarised, racialized policing are identified as policy pressure points; areas in which the regime is sensitive and vulnerable to activism. Drawing on a comparative sociology approach this thesis explores what have been the consequences of three global, populist, networked social movements in order to understand how their activism has shaped the decline of Neoliberalism in relation to these three global crises, and influenced the emergent potential of a more participatory-democratic system of global governance which I refer to as New Global Democracy. The three social movements case studies are the Climate Justice Movement, the Podemos Movement-Party and the Black Lives Matter Movement. For each of the case studies, a local group in one city was selected based on its role as an important hub in the movement’s global network. The three cities are Melbourne, Barcelona and Oakland, in the above respective order. The thesis involves a qualitative methodology of in-depth interviews with activists, participant observation of protest mobilisations and a subsequent critical content analysis of the social media and mass media coverage of the mobilisations. Although they each face a different set of political opportunity structures, each of the movements has had consequences on society at the level of culture, institutions and policy which this thesis seeks to explore. For example, the Climate Justice Movement, while being the victim of circumstance with the ‘state of emergency’ ban on protests due to terror attacks in Paris in the lead-up to COP21 which severely curtailed the movement’s capacity to exert popular pressure during the summit, has impacted on culture through its development and evolution of South-North activist solidarity discourses and practices from the Global Justice Movement of the previous decade. Meanwhile the Podemos-Movement Party has impacted on Spanish institutions such as the conservative Popular Party and the traditional social democratic PSOE party by branding the duumvirate the ‘corrupt regime of 1978’. Through the election results (becoming the third major party in Spain with 21% of the primary vote), the PMP has thoroughly disrupted the state of affairs which had existed prior, and sent shockwaves across the Eurozone about the potential for new parties aimed at creating a participatory democratic governance in other states affected by austerity and local social movements against it. Finally, the Black Lives Matter Movement has dramatically impacted on culture through shining a relentless spotlight on police brutality, remaining in the mass media and popular culture evident on social media for over three years. In the process it has mainstreamed a previously ‘radical’ emancipatory discourse of Black Liberation, and sparked a policy debate about the need to re-evaluate how society should manage inequality through policy means other than mass incarceration and militarized policing.
Globalizations, 2019
In this article we argue against influential analyses of neoliberalism that prioritize variegation and the role of ideas as key theoretical foci relevant to understanding neoliberalism’s diffusion into myriad national and political settings. Rather, we contend that crucial to understanding neoliberalism is the role of politically-produced convergence around market rationality that reflects two core processes: the reorganization of production and the ascendency of financialization. We present a theorization and analysis of neoliberalism’s political production and diffusion over time, explaining its contested evolution and impact across diverse settings (both ‘North’ and ‘South’) and emphasizing its ever-intensifying symbiotic relationship with the consolidating world market in which the former has increasingly come to serve as the latter’s operating system (OS). Further, we posit that neoliberalism’s form, function and impact demand analytically prioritizing the leverage of constellations of ideological and material interests within the contradictory context of consolidating relations of production and financialization. Our analysis thus challenges many previous expositions of neoliberalism for their failure to locate neoliberalism’s manifestation as arising out of social conflict within particular junctures that privilege certain social forces and ideas over others. We also distinguish our position by highlighting how manifestations of neoliberalism in various settings have combined to yield a greater world market in which variegation has gradually given way to ever-intensifying disciplinary pressures towards market-policy conformity (mono-policy). While current populist movements may well turn out to be important counter movements to neoliberal hegemony, especially if they can internationalize, the disciplining effect of the world market renders many nationally-oriented policy alternatives costly and politically fraught.
2003
The world(-)systems* perspective provides a useful framework for discerning the continuities and discontinuities (emergent properties) of long historical waves of global integration (globalization) and social resistance to (capitalist) globalization.. The capitalist world(-)system has experienced long cycles of economic and political integration for centuries and these have been interspersed by periods of social resistance to capitalist globalization, in which disadvantaged, exploited and dominated groups contest the hierarchies that global capitalism and hegemonic states have constructed. In the contemporary period the intensification of capitalist globalization has been accompanied by a strengthening of social resistance and the emergence of new social movements that resist neoliberal globalization and attempt to build alternatives. Careful study of these long waves of globalization and resistance can provide us with important insights that are relevant to the task of building a more humane and democratic global commonwealth in the 21 st century. Research and teaching on the role of the new social movements and the historical dialectic between globalization, resistance, and democratization should be a central aspect of the new critical Global(ization) Studies.