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1 – 10 of over 2000Mathieu Albert and Wendy McGuire
In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular…
Abstract
In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular group of academic scientists has responded to neoliberal changes in science policy and funding in Canada. The data we use are from a qualitative case study of 20 basic health scientists affiliated with a research-intensive university in a large Canadian city. We use the PFP/PFU model to explore the symbolic strategies (the vision of scientific quality) and practical strategies (the acquisition of funding and production of knowledge outputs) scientists adopt to maintain or advance their own position of power in the scientific field. We also compare similarities and differences among scientists trained before and after the rise of neoliberal policy. The PFP/PFU model allows us to see how these individual strategies cumulatively contribute to the construction of dominant and alternate modes of knowledge production. We argue that the alignments and misalignments between quality vision and practice that scientists in this study experienced reflect the symbolic struggles that are occurring among scientists, and between the scientific and political field, over two competing logics and reward systems (PFP/PFU).
The Latin American region experienced an electoral shift to the political left during the 2000s but this leftist shift did not radically alter the political economy of the region…
Abstract
Purpose
The Latin American region experienced an electoral shift to the political left during the 2000s but this leftist shift did not radically alter the political economy of the region. Following Jessop’s (2008) strategic-relational approach to theorizing about the state, this paper focuses on the perspective that the structure of the state is both an outcome of prior social struggles and a structuring mechanism for the social actors that attempt to enact political and economic reforms.
Methodology/approach
After demonstrating what this has historically meant for the types of state that have existed in Latin America during the past century by reviewing some of the literature on the corporatist and bureaucratic-authoritarian states and clientelism, this paper argues that the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s constituted a new type of state – the Latin American neoliberal state. This analysis is then focused on the literature that seeks to describe the new lefts in the region, while continuing to focus on the role of the neoliberal state in structuring these new lefts’ terrain of struggle.
Findings
Understanding the new lefts in Latin America and the types of reforms that they are capable of making requires that we better understand this new type of state. Due to the structural limitations imposed by the neoliberal state, the lefts are not able to radically alter the region’s political economy.
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Neoliberal political leaders such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) heralded entrepreneurs as capitalist heroes, yet for the…
Abstract
Neoliberal political leaders such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) heralded entrepreneurs as capitalist heroes, yet for the most part, the policies they enacted did not help real entrepreneurs. Their image of a self-made entrepreneur who thrives in the absence of government action was fundamentally flawed. Their ideology impaired their ability to promote entrepreneurship because they viewed support for entrepreneurs primarily in negative terms as the removal of government tax and regulatory burdens rather than in positive terms as the cultivation of a dynamic market infrastructure. This article presents this argument in four steps, focusing on the US case: (1) how neoliberal reforms embodied internal contradictions; (2) how reforms to market governance undermined entrepreneurship; (3) how other neoliberal policies also failed to support entrepreneurs; and (4) how policies that violated neoliberal principles, such as industry and technology policies, were actually more supportive of entrepreneurs.
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This chapter analyzes data from a five-year case study of a secondary school undergoing turnaround, supported by a federal School Improvement Grant. The findings explore how…
Abstract
This chapter analyzes data from a five-year case study of a secondary school undergoing turnaround, supported by a federal School Improvement Grant. The findings explore how neoliberal policies perpetuate structural inequities in the day-to-day activities of schools by describing how district choice and accountability policies marginalize students of color in low socioeconomic positions. Findings explore the challenges faced by school leaders in a neoliberal policy context and highlight the importance of policy context in a successful improvement effort. The complex web of neoliberal polices of choice and accountability led to lower enrollment, which decreased the school's base funding and led to a greater proportion of students with skill gaps, significant socioemotional needs and students in need of special education services. For school improvement to be successful and to close the opportunity gap, leaders must dismantle and disrupt racist systems and structures bolstered by neoliberal policies.
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This chapter argues that neoliberal governmentality in immunization relocates the Turkish state's position regarding vaccine and immunization policies. Neoliberalism is often…
Abstract
This chapter argues that neoliberal governmentality in immunization relocates the Turkish state's position regarding vaccine and immunization policies. Neoliberalism is often discussed in the context of privatization, performance, and effectiveness separately. However, more attention should be paid to the set of strategies that are employed in public policy processes to manage populations in terms of immunization, while intertwining power with knowledge. Following Foucault's concept of governmentality and taking it further within the context of biopolitics, this chapter focuses on different knowledge practices regarding vaccine and immunization policies in Turkey. In doing so, this case study applies a post-structural analysis to examine vaccine production, vaccine know-how, and immunization policies inscribed in policy documents as a form of knowledge practice. The analysis sheds light on the reflexive transformation of the concept of biopolitics, which is moving from state-oriented knowledge practices toward a neoliberal governmentality of immunization.
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The UK government’s support for sustainable construction involves an explicit attempt to introduce a new institutional logic into the construction sector, while the use of…
Abstract
The UK government’s support for sustainable construction involves an explicit attempt to introduce a new institutional logic into the construction sector, while the use of Building Research Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) as a preferred policy mechanism exemplifies neoliberal use of voluntary self-regulation to promote policy goals. This paper uses the case of BREEAM to examine the role of science and scientific expertise in the exercise of neoliberal governance. More specifically, it combines a neo-institutional analysis of change with Foucault’s theory of governmentality to explore the effect of BREEAM on eight construction projects. The concepts of visibility, knowledge, techniques, and identity provide an analytic grid to explore the effect of BREEAM on understandings and practices of “green building.” Appeals to science and scientific authority are found to be most important in those instances where institutional logics clash and the legitimacy of BREEAM as a carrier of sustainable construction is challenged. From a theoretical perspective, the case studies highlight the role of instruments in the micro-dynamics of institutionalization. Empirically, it underlines the limited, but nonetheless significant, effect of weakly institutionalized neoliberal policy mechanisms.
This chapter presents empirical results of an analysis of the content of education reform globally in nine policy areas during the recent wave of neoliberal reforms between 1970…
Abstract
This chapter presents empirical results of an analysis of the content of education reform globally in nine policy areas during the recent wave of neoliberal reforms between 1970 and 2018. It draws on data from the World Education Reform Database (WERD), the most comprehensive database to date of education reforms around the world. The results show a dramatic increase in policy reform discourse on improving educational quality compared to reforms in other policy areas between 1970 and 2018, with the pace accelerating from 1990 onwards. Expanding access to education remains an important priority. Access reform discourse slightly increases during the peak period of education reform from 1992 to 2009, before leveling off. The results also show a significant rise of reforms in policy areas related to accountability discourse. Overall, the descriptive trends presented in this chapter complement case study literature on neoliberal education reform and suggests directions further cross-national research.
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Leslie Kern and Gerda R. Wekerle
In the post-industrial economies of large urban centers, redevelopment has become the primary engine of economic growth. Redevelopment projects are designed to encourage…
Abstract
In the post-industrial economies of large urban centers, redevelopment has become the primary engine of economic growth. Redevelopment projects are designed to encourage investment, attract tourism and bring new residents to the city. This form of city building is driven by a neoliberal urban agenda that embraces privatization, and is controlled by the economic interests of private business. In this chapter, we argue that city building under a neoliberal rubric is also a gendered political process, the outcome of which is the redevelopment of urban space in ways that reflect a masculinist and corporatist view of city life. Moreover, both the form of redevelopment and the process itself function to limit public participation in the life and growth of cities, particularly for women and other marginalized groups. In the first section of this chapter, Gendered spaces of redevelopment, we examine how the results of such a process are made manifest in the built form of Canada's largest city, Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million. The city is experiencing a major process of redevelopment and city building that is evident in a massive wave of condominium construction. We suggest that condominium projects, as a particular form of redevelopment, create privatized spaces and encourage privatized services that articulate neatly with a neoliberal urban agenda.
Andrew Midgley and Alan Renwick
Purpose – This chapter explores the way in which the food crisis of 2008 and issues of food security have impinged upon debates about agriculture and agricultural support in…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter explores the way in which the food crisis of 2008 and issues of food security have impinged upon debates about agriculture and agricultural support in Scotland.
Methodology/approach – Adopting a discourse analytic approach, a series of pivotal Scottish agricultural policy documents produced between 2001 and 2010 are examined. Official agricultural policy discourse over time is traced as is the nature of that discourse as the food crisis impinged upon and altered the context of debates about agricultural policy reform.
Findings – The chapter finds that prior to the food crisis, agricultural policy documents were dominated by neoliberal discourse that emphasised the importance of agriculture becoming more oriented towards the market and by a growing emphasis on multifunctionality. But after the food crisis, the dominant political rhetoric utilised different arguments to defend agricultural subsidies and argue for a continuing role for the state in perpetuating agricultural production. It is suggested, however, that the key factor in this retrenchment to continued farm support was not the food crisis per se; rather, it was the intersection of issues of food security with the rise to power of the Scottish nationalists and their resistance to the UK's neoliberal position.
Originality/value – The chapter provides the key insight that, for Scotland at least, the food crisis did not spark a change in domestic agricultural policies, but rather became an argumentative resource that was opportunistically deployed in established debates about agricultural policy reform.
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Thomas Marois and Hepzibah Muñoz-Martínez
This paper aims to expose the economic and political relations of power disguised in the concept of financial risk as institutionalized in post-crisis economic policies and…
Abstract
This paper aims to expose the economic and political relations of power disguised in the concept of financial risk as institutionalized in post-crisis economic policies and practices. We do so by examining, from a historical materialist approach, the actors and social struggles implicated in the aftermath of crisis in Mexico and Turkey. We argue that Mexican and Turkish state authorities have targeted workers so that they may disproportionately bear the costs of financial uncertainty and recurrent crises as workers, taxpayers, and debtors in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 crisis. We emphasize, though, that there are important institutional mediations and case study specificities. Mexico’s reforms that target labor as one of the main bearers of financial risk have been locked into legislation and constitutional changes. Turkey’s policies have been implemented in a more ad-hoc manner. In both cases under contemporary capitalism, we see risk as not confined to national borders but as also flowing through the world market. We further argue that the World Bank Report 2014 Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development emerges out of and reflects such real world responses to crisis that have been predominantly shaped by advocates of neoliberalism, to the benefit of capital. As an expression internal to global capitalism, the World Bank Report functions to legitimize the exploitative content of contemporary financial risk management policy prescriptions. In response, democratized financial alternatives that privilege the needs of workers and the poor are required.
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