Neoliberalism: Alive and Well?

Abstract

Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa. By Chalfin Brenda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 304 pp., $75 hardcover (ISBN 978-0-226-10061-6). After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America. By Gustavo A. Flores-Macias. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 261 pp., $99 hardcover (ISBN 978-0-199-89167-2). Debates about neoliberalism have evolved dramatically over the past decade. The question of what neoliberalism itself involves, as well as what its political fate will be in different parts of the world, has elicited a range of competing frames and perspectives. These two books are no exception and taken together highlight a major divide in our understanding of the phenomenon. On the one hand, Flores-Macias takes a comparative political science approach. His independent variable is the degree of institutionalization of the political party systems in a range of Latin American countries, with in-depth case studies of Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile. The rapid decay of the Venezuelan party system in the 1990s leading to the Chavez presidency with a more authoritarian political system and quasi-socialist economic system; the intermediate institutionalization of the Brazilian system with its disparate collection of parties but also the capacity to forge effective policy coalitions under the “social neoliberal” Lula presidency; and the highly institutionalized Chilean system, with a smaller number of mainly centripetal parties that to a large extent preceded, outlived, and succeeded the Pinochet dictatorship, provide a fascinating comparison. The author also sees economic conditions, especially the “resource …