Neoliberal Conceptions Research Articles

Football after fragmentation: brain banking, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and racial biosociality in the NFL

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes relationships between brain banking practices, football-related head trauma research, and the production of “racial biosocialities”—forms of group affiliation that are constituted through experiences of bodily suffering and shaped around racialized health disparities. The head trauma crisis raises questions about the sustainability of football that will require new strategies for managing the vitality of racial bodies while simultaneously warranting the consumption of harm to these same bodies. I argue that brain banking potentially supports these strategies by publicizing new systems for testing and prevention that reify neoliberal conceptions of personalized risk management and informed choice.

RE(DIS)COVERING MULTICULTURAL CAPITAL IN LEICESTER’S SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES: HISTORICAL LEGACIES AND POSSIBILITIES FOR CHANGE

ABSTRACT This paper empirically re(dis)covers a moment of conjuncture within Leicester when an opportunity opened up through multicultural/anti-racist education for schools and colleges to develop their ‘multicultural capital’. It does this through the thematic analysis of the key proximate document Report of the Working Party on Multicultural Education as well as drawing on interview data provided by two important agents who helped to implement Leicester’s/Leicestershire’s moment of multicultural education. This moment generated a symbolic, ideational, and conceptual shift within Leicester’s education provision toward a more culturally inclusive position that began to recognise the cultural capital of non-white students. However, this moment was to be lost in the ‘neoliberal epoch’. It is argued in this paper that neoliberal education policy/practice has become an enabling mechanism for renascent colonial ideology. By re(dis)covering this vision for the official recognition of non-white cultural capital, this paper demonstrates the possibilities for alternative directions within Leicester’s schools and colleges that can challenge neoliberal and colonial conceptions of education. It suggests that there are still spaces and structures that can be re(dis)covered in order for this vision to be enabled.

Effects of neoliberal rationality on Brazilian Public Health System recent policies and discourses

Abstract Background We analyzed the increasing penetration of neoliberal rationality in recent changes of Brazilian Public Health. We seek to observe if these different discourses and organizational changes represent a lack of accountability for public power and put in risk universal access through a paradoxical defense of equity principle. Methods We performed a discourse analysis of 8 technical documents published by the Ministry of Health from 2016 to 2019 as well as different 5 interviews made with and 6 articles signed by its minister and secretaries. This period comprehends an interim government formed after a controversial impeachment process and the new Ministry staff named after Bolsonaro's election. Results We studied different perspectives of neoliberalism that have been seeking for the last years to untangle the concept of neoliberalism. Inspired by Foucault's thoughts, neoliberalism is understood here beyond as a complex transformation of government paradigms that produces very narrow models of individual freedom and subjectivity and that considers private entrepreneurship as naturally superior to state actions commonly described as inefficient and costly. Often justified by a literature characterized as scientific, we understand that recent Brazilian Public Health formulations have been emphasizing equity to the detriment of universality and overestimating public-private partnerships and private management logic as positive solution for public policies and a prioritization of healthy lifestyle and risk management based on individual and moral autonomy over the role of the State of intervention on health social determinants. Conclusions Recent public speeches and technical documents of Public Health in Brazil at the federal level have been influenced by a neoliberal rationality. These changes require more accurate methods to unravel neoliberalism meanings and practices and preserve hard-won social rights during the re-democratization of Brazil. Key messages Neoliberal rationality of recent Brazilian Public Health discourses represents a lack of accountability for public power and a risk to health universal access. These changes require more accurate methods to unravel neoliberalism meanings and practices and preserve hard-won social rights of our public health system during the re-democratization of Brazil.

Teoría crítica como crítica a la InSustentabilidad: ‘la vida dañada‘ en el Antropoceno

Este artículo intenta situar la noción de sustentabilidad dentro del marco de la teoría crítica. En él se muestra que la sustentabilidad tiene importancia normativa para la sociedad contemporánea y que, al contrario de muchas concepciones y prácticas sustentables, ella cuenta con un potencial latente y crítico. Propongo la noción de sustentabilidad crítica como un modelo cultural poscorporativo que actúe como alternativa frente a la concepción de sustentabilidad neoliberal, así como también frente a definiciones que solo la consideran en términos de racionalidad técnica. La sustentabilidad crítica es un desafío a aquello que Adorno llamó ‘pensamiento deludido’; es una alternativa a la ‘vida dañada’ que viene aparejada a las sociedades insustentables de la modernidad. Hoy se vuelve cada vez más evidente que una de las muchas contradicciones de la modernidad es aquella de la creencia en la infinitud del crecimiento versus la finitud de los recursos de la tierra para sostenerlo. Así, una crítica inmanente de la modernidad desde la perspectiva de la teoría crítica busca develar el antagonismo y la contradicción de una sociedad basada en el crecimiento infinito, la prosperidad y el progreso, pero con recursos finitos.

Literacy in the post-truth era: The significance of affect and the ethical encounter

Education has a responsibility to respond to the threat of deteriorating democracies. The post-truth era is marked by an erosion of trust in public institutions and extreme polarisation. This paper begins with an examination of the ways by which current literacy and media literacy education is not simply outmoded, but also limited by a grounding in neoliberal conceptions of rationality and individualism. Offering a counterpoint to the status quo, and foregrounding the significance of affect, I work with Levinas’s conception of ethics (1979, 1989) to illustrate the tensions between affective reactionism and non-intentional affectivity, enjoyment and its disruption as a premise for intersubjectivity, and contrasting manifestations of anger. I conclude the paper with a proposal for literacy education that comprises intentional focus on relationality, responsibility, and affect.

Economic Freedom in the Balkan Transition Countries from a Valuable Human Ends Perspective

ABSTRACT The paper argues that exercising unlimited economic freedom, as promoted by neoliberal advocates, is in negative correlation with valuable human ends, such as greater wellbeing, healthy environment, and poverty elimination. The absence of barriers for business operations often threatens the right to safe food and drinking water, and other human rights. This is particularly true in small economies, such as in the Balkan transition countries. The market in these countries is ‘free’ and ‘open’ for big players predominantly, creating economic non-opportunities and non-freedom for the majority. This paper calls for a change to the neoliberal concept of economic freedom and deregulation. The research methods include a case study and the interpretative comparative analysis of the trends in the relevant fields.

Government of oneself and others via a Facebook profile

Abstract The thesis of this article is that neoliberal governmentality, rather than means of coercion, uses various means of persuasion and ethical obligation. This is demonstrated by analyzing the discourse of the “Dr Mateusz Grzesiak” Facebook profile. It encourages individuals to utilize personal development techniques and promotes the neoliberal concept of the subject. Thus, this article explores the ideas proposed within studies of governmentality and supplements them with the perspectives offered by rhetoric culture theory. The profile of one of Poland’s most recognizable personal development coaches can be seen as a materialisation of neoliberal governmentality as well as a symbolic system used as an instrument of persuasion. It can be analysed through the dramatistic approach proposed by Kenneth Burke as well as the Aristotelian idea of ethos, Jean Nienkamp’s notions of internal and external rhetoric, and the concept of argumentation by model and example proposed by Chaïm Perelman.

Neoliberalism and global textbooks: a critical ethnography of English language classrooms in Serbia

ABSTRACT While there is a growing body of scholarship on the neoliberal content of global English textbooks, the ways in which these commercial materials come to life in teaching and learning practices are still under researched. Drawing on a critical ethnographic account of two English courses for unemployed students in a private language school in Serbia, this paper examines the beliefs and actions of teachers and students in regard to English language education and the global textbooks they use. The results suggest that many views about the English language courses and their textbooks in this case study are deeply shaped by the broader socioeconomic context of neoliberalism. Furthermore, the neoliberalism featured in the textbook motivates students to learn English and to transform themselves into suitable citizens and workers for the current economic order. In this way, the global textbook becomes one of the many tools that neoliberalism uses to reproduce itself. This paper argues that the present state of affairs is not an inevitable and desirable one and calls for implementing alternative approaches to the dominant neoliberal conception of English language education.

DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES IN THE INDUSTRY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA DURING THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 21st CENTURY

The first decade of the 21st century in the Republic of Serbia is characterized by numerous changes of the economic nature. It was a period of accelerated reform based on the neoliberal concept, i.e. a period of transition to the spontaneous unfolding of economic flows. This concept should have guided the economy of the Republic of Serbia towards the market economy, enabled relatively high rates of economic growth, has raised its level of competitiveness and, has ultimately, prepared it for the market competition. However, it can be concluded that the ten-year application of this concept has directed the economy of the Republic of Serbia in a completely different direction: towards foreign savings, disproportionate growth of the sector of non-tradable goods and services and overheating of domestic demand as the main driver of growth. The inability to autonomously or partially autonomously create their own sources of growth, on the one hand, and the continuation of the foreign borrowing spiral, on the other, were key synthetic indicators of the current state of the economy. Therefore, the Republic of Serbia was forced to change its economic growth model. According to many opinions, development processes in industry, its position in the newly formed economic structure of the country, as well as structural changes within the industry itself, has been one of the key causes of the negative developmental trends in the economy of the Republic of Serbia during the first decade of the 21st century. With this in mind, this paper analyzes the development processes in the industry of the Republic of Serbia during the first decade of the 21st century, that is, the results of the aforementioned processes, namely: changes in the structure of industry, results of privatization of industry, trends in employment in industry, and developments in foreign trade industry.

“No Face Can Be Approached With Empty Hands and Closed Home”: Literacy in the Post-Truth Era

Education has a responsibility to respond to the threat of deteriorating democracies (DeLuca & Christou, 2016; Peters, 2017). The post-truth era is marked by an erosion of trust in public institutions and conflict in online spaces. The broad purpose of this research is to examine the ways in which the evolving post-truth era has the potential to redefine how people consume information and make decisions, and to explore the implications for democracy. A more specific purpose is to draw attention to the limits of current literacy pedagogy and to propose a literacy education that engages deeply with questions of intersubjectivity. I begin with a discussion of the evolution of literacy education policy and curriculum, looking at disjunction between research and practice. I demonstrate the ways current literacy and media literacy education is not simply outmoded, but also limited by neoliberal conceptions of rationality and individualism. Offering a counterpoint to the status quo, I work with Levinas’ (1969, 1989) conception of ethics to consider the importance of three affective dimensions of literacy. I illustrate the tensions between affective reactionism and non-intentional affectivity, enjoyment and its disruption as a premise for intersubjectivity and two manifestations of anger—moral and defensive. I conclude with a proposal for literacy education that furnishes a space for the intersubjective relation to emerge. This approach comprises an intentional focus on relationality, responsibility and affect.

Neoliberalismo e desenvolvimento regional

A tradição neoliberal tem produzido modificações no papel do Estado e na condução da vida pública, dessas transformações não escapa as políticas regionais. Nesse contexto, o presente artigo visa averiguar o caráter das políticas regionais no Brasil nos últimos 20 anos, se a sua condução está sujeita as diretrizes neoliberais estabelecidas para “Estado de Consolidação”, bem como as possibilidades e limites que tais orientações impõem a desenvolvimento regional. Para tanto, é realizada uma revisão de literatura sobre o conceito de neoliberalismo e suas remodelações do papel do Estado; a influência deste sobre as orientações nas políticas regionais proposta por organismos internacionais; e, por fim, apresenta o direcionamento das política de desenvolvimento regional no Brasil, nos últimos 20 anos, e sua interlocução com a lógica neoliberal. Os resultados sugerem que embora haja a retomada das políticas regionais no país, com impactos regionais relevantes, a condução da política está restrita a agenda de políticas neoliberais que formam “Estado de Consolidação”, portanto, sujeita as orientações dos credores do Estado, com atuação reduzida a conceder estímulo ao aumento de competitividade do território no sentido de torna-los mais atrativos para as decisões de localização, da produção, emprego e população do mercado. Palavras-chave: Neoliberalismo. Desenvolvimento Regional. Políticas Regionais.

Videovigilancia y segregación espacial en tiempos del neoliberalismo autoritario. El caso de Los Cabos, Baja California Sur (México)

In a context of acute spatial segregation derived from beaches’ privatization processes and the coastal landscape in the Los Cabos Tourist Corridor (Baja California Sur, Mexico), the state government has responded to the threat of organized crime to the functioning of international hotel chains with video surveillance schemes and the criminalization of acts considered to be against tourist interests in the area. This paper uses the concepts of authoritarian neoliberalism associated with a type of space production to analyze the phenomenon of video surveillance in a context of conflicts and social tensions under the auspices of the tourism growth model in Los Cabos region. A qualitative methodology was used, relying on field work by observing the study area, analysis of relevant bibliography, and press reports.

The Unethical Enterprise of the Past: Lessons from the Collapse of Archaeological Heritage Management in Spain

This paper explores the underlying factors behind the collapse of commercial archaeology in Spain, with implications for other international contexts. It contributes to the current global debate about heritage ethics, adding nuance and conceptual depth to critical management studies and cultural heritage management in their approach to business ethics. Similar to other European contexts, Spanish archaeological management thrived during the 1990s and 2000s as a business model based on policies directed at safeguarding cultural heritage. The model had controversial ethical implications at academic, policy and business levels. However, the global financial crisis of 2008 had a huge impact on this sector, and more than 70% of the Spanish archaeological companies closed by 2017. Drawing on the concepts of abstract narratives, functional stupidity and corporatist neoliberalism, this paper illustrates the need to examine ethical issues from a pragmatic standpoint, beyond epistemological and moralistic critiques of profit-oriented businesses in the cultural realm. In doing so, it connects the fields of cultural heritage and management studies, opening up hitherto unexplored strands of research and debate.

The nature of markets: on the affinity between masculinity and (neo)liberalism

ABSTRACT The relationship between masculinity, neoliberalism, and capitalist economy is difficult to analyse. This is apparent when we consider recent studies of neoliberal capitalism, which are almost entirely books about men, and yet this feature consistently escapes critical attention. In contrast, this article brings this relation into focus, and suggests that the critique of hegemonic masculinities is an important feature of the critique of neoliberalism. The article first reviews existing literature on the intersection of masculinity and capitalism, which is increasingly being drawn towards the analysis of neoliberalism. It then briefly takes up Michel Foucault’s study of neoliberalism, especially his contention that classical liberalism’s concern with the nature of markets maintains an ambiguous persistence within the neoliberal project, in order to consider what it may have to offer to an analysis of masculinity and neoliberalism. Finally, I turn to one of the key thinkers in the intellectual development of neoliberalism – Ludwig von Mises – and provide a critical rereading of his 1944 book Bureaucracy. I argue that, beneath its veneer of economic rationality, the text mobilizes masculinity as a technology that is crucial to managing both the affective and economic insecurities generated by neoliberal conceptions of freedom in market-based societies.

The Impact of Informal Employment of the Population of the Northern Resource-Producing Region on Its Budget

It is currently impossible to analyse the socio-economic situation and the budgets of the Russian regions without taking into account the problems of informal employment. There is a wide variety of publications on this topic. However, they do not sufficiently address the regional features and reasons for the behaviour of economic entities, which do not wish to comply with the legalization requirements. We conducted the research based on the neoliberal concept, which considers the informal sector as a consequence of the excessive regulation and state taxation. We hypothesise that the existence of informal employment in the region results in a budget deficit and requires the development of measures promoting the legalization of self-employed income. The study determined the level and causes of the regional informal employment, and assessed its impact on the budget. As a research methodology, we applied empirical methods, statistical, economic and financial analysis. The survey of the population of the Khanty-Mansy Autonomous Okrug — Yugra, established the nature and the main causes of informal employment. Based on the analysis of the regional budget and labour resources, we have examined the impact of informal employment on the budget and determined its cumulative effect. Finally, we have proposed a methodology for assessing how the existing level of self-employment influences the regional budget. This methodology takes into account not only the damage caused to the regional budget revenue due to the lack of tax payments, but also the damage associated with excessive social expenditures on the self-employed population. The research results can be used for developing the projects aimed at reducing informal employment at all levels of government.

Rethinking the Role of the State in Employment Relations for a Neoliberal Era

Over the past 30 years, state intervention to reshape employment relations has become a generalized feature of contemporary capitalism. A broad neoliberal reconstruction of the market order has gone hand in hand with a more active state. In this article the author argues that liberalization in the sphere of employment relations could not have taken place without a more active state. Building on a regulation theory framework and an elaboration of the concept of neoliberalism as the regulatory infrastructure of emergent growth models, the author examines how the widespread shift from wage-led growth to other forms of growth across the advanced capitalist world has encouraged changes in the role of the state in the regulation of employment relations. These roles include market making, individual employment regulation in place of collective regulation, state-directed social pacts, and redrawing the boundaries between work and non-work. The article concludes with an explanation for continuing variations in employment relations.

Neoliberalism at the borders of transnational policy: political exclusion in Australia’s Reconceptualization of trans-Tasman traditions

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the influence of political traditions on policymaking at the interface of national and transnational governance. It uncovers various dimensions of influence on boundary-setting through policy change, derived from a case study examining how Australia reconceptualised longstanding freedom of residential movement and equal treatment for citizens across the Tasman. These policymaking activities spanned boundaries across policy subsystems at the interface of both domestic and transnational arenas, in response to perceived dilemmas. This paper focuses on the enabling role of neoliberal ideations to effect an agenda driven by more covert motives. In context of bilateral economic integration, conflicting traditions created a dilemma for Australia, which sought to maintain the advantages of the free labour-market whilst minimizing the problem of granting access to social security and citizenship to those perceived to be unsuitable. I find that Australia, in resolving this dilemma, allowed neoliberal conceptions of labour as a commodity, thereby enabling traditions of exclusion and border control, to override longstanding trans-Tasman traditions.

Building a Good Jobs Economy

Conventional models are failing throughout the world. In the developed world, the welfare state-compensation model has been in retrenchment for some time, and the drawbacks of the neoliberal conception that has superseded it are increasingly evident. Yet there is no compelling alternative on offer. In the developing world, the conventional, tried-and-tested model of industrialization has run out of steam. In both sets of societies a combination of technological and economic forces (in particular, globalization) is creating or exacerbating productive/technological dualism, with a segment of advanced production in metropolitan areas that thrives on the uncertainty generated by the knowledge economy co-existing with a mass of relatively less productive activities and communities that neither contributes to nor benefits from innovation. The sizes of these two sectors and the trajectories leading into them may vary, but otherwise the nature of the underlying problem seems to have converged in the developed and developing worlds.

Militarized peace: understanding post-conflict violence in the wake of the peace deal in Colombia

ABSTRACT After more than 50 years of war, in 2016, the Colombian government signed a historic peace accord with the country’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Although the cessation of hostilities between the rebel group and the government is a monumental step, violence remains rife in the country. By drawing attention to the correlation between neoliberal economic development in the country and militarism, this paper sheds light on several structural issues that have been left potentially unresolved by the peace negotiations, each with the potential to ignite further violence. We introduce the concept of militaristic neoliberalism to argue that there is a fundamental link between Colombia’s neoliberal development and a culture of militarism, which relies on gendered and racialized constructions of ‘self’ and ‘other’, that exacerbate structural inequalities and severely hampers prospects for achieving peace for many of Colombia’s citizens post-conflict.

Urban as Palimpsest: Neoliberal Environments, Fishing Livelihoods, and Toxic Landscapes in Mumbai, India

This paper illustrates the significance of the palimpsest as a conceptual and representational tool to analyze urban transformations over time. Focusing on urbanization in Mumbai, India, this paper examines the growth of the service sector through the re-shaping of an urban periphery. Based on qualitative field-based research for ten months in 2015–16, I examine how Malad, formerly a periphery dotted with fishing villages became a service sector hub, and an area epitomizing Mumbai’s urban modernization. Through a series of collages, I illustrate changes in Malad’s urban morphology resulting from a long history of colonial and postcolonial land transactions that facilitated infill and land reclamation, and their acceleration since the 1990s. The layers of the palimpsest make visible the environmental and livelihood damage in the form of toxicity, reduced fish availability and loss of other environmental resources, otherwise absent in the dominant narrative surrounding Malad’s transformation. Through the palimpsest, embodied environmental associations of livelihood and loss are uneasily juxtaposed with narrower neoliberal conceptions of sustainability that frame service sector development. I show how the palimpsest as an analytic can represent the power nexus embroiled in transforming urban environments with repercussions on urban ecological systems and erase embodied associations of indigenous communities.