Handbook of Neoliberalism

What is new about neoliberalism? Such a question immediately implies that certain objects and processes can be defined as ‘neoliberal’ and, importantly, that the contents of the ‘neo’ can be explained by reference to a larger phenomenon called liberalism. A veritable galaxy of things are now attached to the term ‘neoliberalism’, if not as some primary identifying marker then at least as one descriptive property among others. This chapter seeks to offer a window through which to problematize and analyse this core, if recalcitrant, question. In keeping with other debates in the social sciences, it proposes that the frame of neoliberalism tries to capture something about developments in capitalism since the…