Templates, typologies and typifications: neoliberalism as keyword

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism as a concept, ideology, or theoretical lens has emerged in the last couple of decades as a monolithic presence in education research, and the social sciences more broadly. We bring two aims to this Special Issue: to critique the rigour of neoliberalism as a theoretical framework utilised within education research; and second, to explore and propose an alternative to neoliberalism as a critical frame of analysis. This paper will postulate three-waves of neoliberalism, specifically ordo-liberalism, radical liberalism, and post-neoliberalism. We challenge ‘big-N’ neoliberalism; conceptualisations of neoliberalism as homogenous and monolithic; and, demonstrate how neoliberalism interacts with particular milieus of time and space. In reflection of Williams but also Foucault’s tracing of ‘discursive formations’, neoliberalism as a keyword points to a genealogy of power which requires further excavation. The notion of an assemblage, enabling mutations and contra configurations, may offer a way forward.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• ordo-liberalism
• Foucault
• Fraser
• keyword: assemblage

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank and acknowledge the expertise of external reviewers who reviewed papers in this Special Issue and contributed their intellectual energy to the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The tracing here will be relatively brief, and for a more thorough excavation of ‘neoliberalism’, see Peck (2010), Ong (2006) or original second-wave texts, written by Hayek (1944), or Friedman (1962).

2 The ‘social market economy’ was a term later adopted by Pinochet and Friedman, in association with the Chile coup, and thus it came to bear negative connotations. The social market economy was originally conceived as a potential ‘third way’ from left and right political orientations (see, Giddens, 1999).