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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $99.95

Format:
Hardback
304 pp.
156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199580576

Publication date:
November 2010

Imprint: OUP UK


Constructions of Neoliberal Reason

Jamie Peck

Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' on international development policy and the phenomenon of corporate globalization, where it has come to mean privatization, deregulation, and the opening up of new markets. But beyond its utility as a protest slogan or buzzword as shorthand for the political-economic Zeitgeist, what do we know about where neoliberalism came from and how it spread? Who are the neoliberals, and why do they studiously avoid the label?

Constructions of Neoliberal Reason presents a radical critique of the free-market project, from its origins in the first half of the 20th Century through to the recent global economic crisis, from the utopian dreams of Friedrich von Hayek through the dogmatic theories of the Chicago School to the hope and hubris of Obamanomics. The book traces how neoliberalism went from crank science to common sense in the period between the Great Depression and the age of Obama.

Constructions of Neoliberal Reason dramatizes the rise of neoliberalism and its uneven spread as an intellectual, political, and cultural project, combining genealogical analysis with situated case studies of formative moments throughout the world, like New York City's bankruptcy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street crisis of 2008. The book names and tracks some of neoliberalism's key protagonists, as well as some of the less visible bit-part players. It explores how this adaptive regime of market rule was produced and reproduced, its logics and limits, its faults and its fate.

Readership : Academics researchers, and advanced students in the social sciences.

1. Relocating Neoliberalism
2. Rebooting Freedom
3. Finding the Chicago School
4. Between Gotham and the Gulf
5. Creative Liberties
6. Decoding Obamanomics

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Jamie Peck holds the Canada Research Chair in Urban and Regional Political Economy at the University of British Columbia, where he is a Professor of Geography.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism - David Harvey
Regions and the World Economy - Allen J. Scott
Making Sense in the Social Sciences - Margot Northey, Lorne Tepperman and Patrizia Albanese

Special Features

  • A vivid and engaging account of how the belief system of neoliberalism was constructed.
  • Explains the key terms and situates the key protagonists.
  • Provides a critique of neoliberal reason, exposing its flaws, frailities, and fallacies.
  • Accounts for neoliberal reason's durability.
  • Situates the politics of the recent global economic crisis in a wider historical frame.