![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the connections between neo-liberalism and the politics of the far right through the prism of race. Contesting the claims of neo-liberal theorists and politicians as to its ‘post-racial’ character, it seeks to both historise the significance of racism within neo-liberalism through its connections to liberal political thought and practice over the longue durée and examine the relationship between neo-liberalism and far right politics. It does this through (1) highlighting the political significance of the far right in securing the electoral–political hegemony of neo-liberalism within Britain and the United States since the early 1980s; and (2) the way in which the socio-economic insecurities produced by neo-liberalism have helped to provoke far right responses as an alternative form of racialised moral economy. Consequently, while the relationship between the far right and neo-liberalism is contradictory, racial signifiers and racism have provided an important means through which such contradictions have been eased.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the comments and advice on an earlier draft of this article from Jean-Francois Drolet, Daniel Kato, Ray Kiely, Robbie Shilliam and Lisa Tilley. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer for the very useful and supportive comments and suggestions that have helped to improve the quality of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Richard Saull is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Queen Mary, University of London. He is currently writing an Monograph on the International Historical Sociology of the European Far Right.
Notes
1 The (German) ordo-liberal tradition associated with the work of Wilhem Röpke in particular does contain a set of highly racialised assumptions concerning both the nature of communism and the possibility of self-government by former colonies (see Solchany Citation2014). In addition, James Buchanan, the originator of the Public Choice strand of neo-liberalism, was also a supporter of Jim Crow and a long-standing opponent of affirmative action legislation (see MacLean Citation2017).
2 These thinkers operate from within a social ontology that is removed from any recognition of colonial dispossession and the legacies of enslavement; the social world of their present and their theoretical models were and are removed from a present connected to a historical past and an economic structure defined by the colonial–imperial episode. Consequently, writers such as Becker, Friedman and others argue that any state-based affirmative action policies are regarded as ‘racial privileging’ through offering advantages to one racial group to the cost of other groups (Omi and Winant Citation2015: 53–73). This also extends to their claim that such policies – because of their ‘market distorting effects’ – create a ‘culture of poverty and dependence’ (see Bonilla-Silva Citation2009).
3 Defined as ‘a system property, permeating, circulating throughout and continuously constituting society’ (Kim Citation2003: 9).
4 I do not have the space here to cover the definitional debates and complexities associated with the ‘far right’ (though see the following: Berlet and Lyons Citation2000, Mudde Citation2007, Hainsworth Citation2008, Wodack et al. Citation2013). However, with respect to the discussion that follows, I take the far right to consist of a range of historical and contemporary political currents extending from parties such as UKIP in the UK or the ‘Tea-Party wing’ of the Republican Party to fascist movements. What unites these two strands of the far right are (1) an idea of politics and citizenship rooted in a racialised imaginary (based on hierarchy and separation) of nation that also relates to a social conservatism that extends beyond race to gender and sexuality; and (2) a political project of popular mobilisation that, while disproportionately drawing on petit-bourgeois support, also situates itself between the forces of organised labour and its associated class politics, and that of traditional and existing ruling classes and especially those connected to cosmopolitan and internationalist forms of governance and co-operation.
5 In this respect, then, my discussion seeks to highlight the commonalities in liberal thought and practice with that of neo-liberalism as concerns race.
6 See Glickman (Citation2016) for a useful historical audit of the terms liberal and liberalism in the context of US politics since the New Deal that speaks to the continuities within liberal political economy.
7 This, I hope, addresses any suggestion that my argument is either ‘functionalist’ in the sense that what I set out below could be read as the ‘primary role of the far right is to act as an agent of liberalism to rescue it from the revolutionary left’, or conflates these two distinct ideo-political orientations.
8 In the contemporary context of anti-Muslim racism and more generalised attacks on ‘multiculturalism’, Gary Younge (Citation2009; see also Lentin and Titley Citation2011) highlights how this plays out in the calls for Muslims to make explicit and public declarations of their commitment to ‘Britishness’ which works as an additional and discriminatory qualification to Muslims being accepted as equal citizens.
9 The greater public visibility of people of colour, the significance of black cultural icons and the growth of black entrepreneurs in the corporate world and, of course, the election of an African-American to the US presidency are all indicative of the post-racial possibilities within a neo-liberal social universe. Furthermore, the embrace of neo-liberal social and cultural nostrums and ideological tropes by non-white citizens (see Oprah Winfrey or Damon Buffini, but also the most infamous case, perhaps, as revealed in the O. J. Simpson story), is also suggestive of the way in which neo-liberalism can be seen as a source of individualised racial emancipation (see Pitcher Citation2012, Citation2016). However, while we might see these developments as reflecting the social and political advance of a small number of non-white individuals as quintessential neo-liberal subjects (see Gilroy Citation2013), that is, they are no longer seen as ‘black’ in the dominant popular consciousness or media framing, collectivities of people of colour continue to be structurally and institutionally racially disadvantaged.
10 Indeed, the (former) UKIP leader, Nigel Farrage, has been explicit about this (Holehouse Citation2014).
11 The history of the international capitalist economy between 1870 and 1945 in particular was punctuated by episodes of the forces of the far right and liberalism coming together in response to periods of economic crises. Such ‘embraces’ were evident in the nationalist and protectionist turns in Germany and France in the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the shifts in some currents of liberal opinion towards protectionism in the British Empire. Its most dramatic examples were, obviously, evident in the coming to power of fascist movements in Italy and Germany after 1918 and the involvement of liberal political forces in such developments (see Abraham Citation1986, Riley Citation2010).
12 In the notorious case of Chile after the 1973 military coup, Hayek was willing to publicly defend such authoritarian, quasi-fascist arrangements. See Bonefeld (Citation2017a) and Kiely (Citation2017) for further comment.
13 Aspects of this argument also appear in liberal commentary on ‘populism’ (see Müller Citation2016).
14 ‘External’ in the sense of being outside the political ontology of liberalism in terms of both the functioning of the ‘free’ activity of market exchange and with respect to the constitutional legal and representative bases of state power.
15 There is also evidence to suggest that such political developments were no impediment for the strengthening of some (neo)liberal economic imperatives (see Bel Citation2010).
16 In the context of the cold war in what used to be called the Third World, the suspension of liberal democracy (or the possibilities for its development) by far right forces became a much more regular occurrence in moments of social and political crises and where political elites, usually supported by Western powers, perceived a threat from the forces of the revolutionary left (Halliday Citation1986, Saull Citation2011). And while these examples of far right regimes in parts of the South during the cold war were reflective of a generic far right politics, we also need to locate them within a broader imperialist system of racism and hierarchy atop of which sat the Western liberal powers.
17 The racialised nature of American liberalism also played out in anti-communism where communism was seen as an ideology that African-Americans were particularly susceptible to (Borstelmann Citation2001, Seymour Citation2016).
18 Indeed, the increase in fiscal outlays for policing and criminal justice that has characterised much of the neo-liberal era across the Anglosphere was not only a reflection of the influence of far right ideas but also reflected the specificities of much neo-liberal thinking concerning the need to reconfigure the state to make it a more effective guardian of a market order (see Cristi Citation1998).
19 Thus, while we can identify differences in both policy and rhetoric under the ‘centre-left neo-liberalism’ of New Labour and the Clinton Democrats, both upheld the core dimensions of the neo-liberal/far right nexus established under Reagan and Thatcher with regard to welfare reform and law and order policies. Thus, in both cases, forms of workfare and a punitive sanctions regime remained in place, and in terms of penal policy, (racialised) incarceration rates actually increased (see Sim Citation2015, Murakawa Citation2014).
20 For discussions of the racialised character of British social democracy and earlier far right interventions, see: Joshi and Carter Citation1984, Miles and Phizacklea Citation1984, Layton-Henry Citation1992, Solomos Citation1993, Schwarz Citation1996, Paul Citation1997, Virdee Citation2014, Pitcher, Citation2016.
21 A key claim of the far right – as echoed in Trump’s inauguration address – is that ‘foreigners’ (through the off-shoring of production) and ‘immigrants’ have taken (American) jobs. The evidence, however, suggests that it has been the ruthless logic of innovation and the search for value that has been as much, if not a greater destroyer of skilled and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs in industries such as car production, through the increased use of labour-saving automated production techniques (Cocco Citation2016, Ignatius Citation2016).
22 Philips’ (Citation1999) work makes an important contribution in addressing this issue head on. Particular thanks to the anonymous reviewer for alerting me to this text.
