Neoliberal Globalization and Heightened Perceptions of Class Division in Iceland

Abstract

This article uses the case of Iceland to study how neoliberal globalization impacts class discourse in the political field and broader perceptions of class division. Analyzing a leading newspaper and parliamentary debates from 1986–2012, I show how neoliberal globalization—especially by increasing economic inequality—created a disjuncture between an increasingly differentiated social space and a national habitus cultivated in a small, homogeneous, and egalitarian society. This undermined taken-for-granted assumptions of relative classlessness and heightened perceptions of class division during a neoliberal ascendancy period from 1995 to Iceland's economic collapse in September 2008.