Political Neoliberalism

In recent years, the concept of neoliberalism has been discarded as shrill and overspent. In Political Neoliberalism, Christian Joppke argues that it is a useful lens to make sense of a wide range of political phenomena--those pertaining to the order and governing of advanced Western societies, but also rupture and conflict at the extreme right and left ends of the political spectrum. With respect to order, Joppke outlines an inventory of the political forms of neoliberalism that undermined the post-World War II liberal-democratic synthesis. This is complemented by a genealogy of neoliberalism, which matured from a movement associated with the right into a full-blown political order once the left, in terms of the Third Way, embraced its principles. In response to the center right-left consensus on market-conforming principles and policies, radical movements have emerged that signal rupture: right-wing populism, on the one hand, and left-wing identity politics, on the other. Despite their oppositionist posture and claims to be authentically democratic, Joppke argues that both are movements within rather than against neoliberalism. Their illiberal leanings make them unsuited to credibly recover democracy, the indispensable tool to rein in the imposition of market principles on most--if not all--aspects of society. In contrast to the optimism for a return of a public-good oriented state that was galvanized by the Covid-19 pandemic, Joppke's telling closes with an indictment of the ways pandemic public health management rejuvenated political neoliberalism through the expansion of technocratic authoritarianism and the increased power of big corporations, with no forces on the horizon capable of shifting political neoliberalism off-track. A shrewd and original analysis of what must be considered the predominant ideological project in our time, this is essential reading for anyone interested in neoliberalism and the persistent crisis of liberal democracy.