Term Proliferation Research Articles

Neoliberalism as concept

This paper is a critical exploration of the of the term neoliberalism. Drawing on a wide range of literature across the critical social sciences and with particular emphasis on the political economy of development, it evaluates the consequences of the term's proliferation and expanded usage since the 1980s. It advances a case that neoliberalism has become a deeply problematic and incoherent term that has multiple and contradictory meanings, and thus has diminished analytical value. In addition, the paper also explores the one-sided, morally laden usage of the term by non-economists to describe economic phenomena, and the way that this serves to signify and reproduce the divide between economics and the rest of the social sciences.