Panel 7:

Drivers and defining moments of neoliberalization in Europe

Preliminary programme

 

Abstract

Over the past 5 years, two larger historical research projects on national and regional trajectories of neoliberalization took place: Jenny Anderssons Neoliberalism in the Nordics (Scandinavia) and Ido de Haans Market Makers (the Netherlands). Next to that, various monographs and PhD-studies focused on the histories of neoliberalism in specific countries and then there’s a wide variety of articles and monographs on neoliberalism in specific sectors (housing, social security, labor relations, monetary policy, competition policy, education etc.). Even two neoliberalism handbooks saw the light.

In this panel we want to draw up the balance sheet. What are common drivers and defining moments? Who are the most important actors? What are striking differences? And how do we account for these commonalities and differences?
During the first half of panel, we aim to establish a common working definition of neoliberalism. Each speaker will have maximum 5 minutes to sketch his/her definition, after which a commentator will try to link these. The rest of the time there will be a group discussion between the panelists and the auditors, aimed at establishing a common ground and clarifying differences.

The second half of panel, we will discuss the drivers and defining moments of neoliberalization in Europe. Speakers will have 5 minutes to present their take on the drivers, defining moments and main actors. After that the commentator will try to bring these views together. The rest of the time there will be a group discussion between the panelists and the auditors, aimed at establishing an overview of the main drivers and defining moments.

We will publish the proceedings of the panels, in order to make the outcomes known to the wider community of neoliberalism researchers.

 

Panelists:   

Chair: Dieter Plehwe

Professor at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, specialized in research on neoliberal think tanks and editor of several well received edited volumes on neoliberalism

 

Discussant: Hagen Schulz-Forberg

Associate professor at Aarhus University, specialized in early neoliberalism, in anti-politics and populism in Europe.

 

Julie MacLeavy

Professor at School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, specialized in neoliberal social security, co-author of the Routledge Handbook of Neoliberalism

The shift in academic attention to ‘neoliberalization’ as a process (rather than ‘neoliberalism’ as a defined political movement or distinct ideology) is useful in foregrounding the series of geopolitically distinct hybrids that exist around the world and how they mutate over time. It also helps spotlight the internal contradictions of capitalist accumulation which first motivated the spread of neoliberalism worldwide and now necessitates its constant transformation to overcome the periodic crises wrought by the impossibility of maintaining both a free economy and a strong state. While neoliberalism is associated with ideas about limited states powers, I will outline how its implementation has relied upon on strong government intervention and the ongoing manipulation of accepted wisdoms about economic and social freedoms. In doing so, my aim is to make clear that neoliberalization is an evolving political project that advances as actors and organisations dissipate challenges to its economic, organizational and institutional ideals. This will include reflection upon changes in the market rationalities and logics taken up by governments, including the difference made by the Wall Street crash, Great Recession and age of austerity for neoliberalism in theory and practice.

 
Jesper Vestermark Køber

Postdoctoral researcher in the ‘Neoliberalism in the Nordics’-project at Københavns Universitet, editor of the book Citizen Categories in the Danish Welfare State

The contribution concentrates on defining the concept of neoliberalism in a Nordic context. Unlike other parts of Europe, there are few links between the development of neoliberal reforms in the Nordic countries and the Mont Pèlerin Society. Instead, neoliberalism can among other things be traced to various ideas of public choice that public servants imported from international economic literature as solutions to problems in the welfare state from the 1980s. Focusing on five arenas: privatization, new public management, labor market policy, entrepreneurship and environmental issues, the presentation briefly describes the past forty years of Danish neoliberalism and provides a short status on neoliberalism today.

Zoé Évrard

PhD candidate in political economy at the Max Planck Sciences Po Center for Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo).

Her work focuses on the role of macroeconomic expertise in policymaking, the history of socio-economic planning and that of neoliberalism, based on an in-depth study of the Belgian case.
This contribution focuses on the formation of a new consensus within the Christian-Democrat pillar in Belgium as the determining factor explaining the major policy turn operated by the Martens V government in December 1981. In contrast with the existing literature on small states, it argues that consensus-decision making was key to the Belgian neoliberalization process, and points to the role of public experts close to the Christian Democrat pillar in its depoliticization. 
 

Naomi Woltring

(PhD candidate in political history at Utrecht University, working on neoliberalization of the Dutch welfare state, 1989-2008)

Neoliberal ideas on ‘market conform’ social security spread via a small community of politicians, top level civil servants and scientists, who formed a discourse coalition within the main advisory and policy making institutions in the 1980s. These ideas were the basis for Dutch social security reform in the 1990s. Underneath were neoliberal assumptions on the desirability of competitiveness in a globalizing world, a level playing field and the need for the (welfare) state to set the right incentives in order to prevent ‘moral hazard’. The policies based on these ideas consisted of a variety of practices: diminishing social security benefits, disciplining via incentives, diminishing protective rules and their enforcement and the separation of policy making and execution. This led to rising inequality, an increasingly repressive workfare state, enhanced employer discretion and also a more ‘hollow’ state.