Diffusion of Variegated Neoliberalization processes in Euro-Mediterranean policies: a strategic relational approach

ABSTRACT

Recent contributions to the study of neoliberalism have made considerable advances in transcending the dichotomy between understandings of the concept either as an ‘ideology’ or as a monolithic ‘structure’. In particular, the Variegated Neoliberalization (VNLT) approach has proposed an understanding of neoliberalism that relies on a path-dependent moment (i.e. the ‘uneven development of neoliberalization’) which is then followed by a path-shaping moment (i.e. the ‘neoliberalization of regulatory uneven development’). Such a perspective allows us to understand both systemic and contingent tendencies in neoliberalization processes across different geographies, transcending the socially constructed North–South divide. However, the VNLT approach has encountered a number of critiques, particularly in relation to its treatment of agency. In order to transcend these critiques and propose a more nuanced understanding of ways agents reflexively and recursively interpret and deepen – or refrain from deepening – neoliberal norms, I turn to the Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA) proposed by [Jessop, B. (2001). Institutional re(turns) and the strategic – relational approach. Environment and Planning A, 33(7), 1213–1235]. Through the SRA, it becomes possible to pinpoint both instances of ‘structured coherence’ and ‘patterned incoherence’ resulting from agential reflexivity in different contexts of neoliberalization. I will therefore turn to cases where these two patterns can be observed in the context of Euro-Mediterranean policies – that is, Morocco’s ‘structured coherence’ due to its internalized and deepening neoliberalization, and Egypt’s ‘patterned incoherence’ as a result of its still uneven development of neoliberalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Variegated Neoliberalization
• strategic relational approach
• Euro-Mediterranean policies
• Morocco-Egypt
• diffusion

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lydia Gronemeier and Aleksandra Piletic for their assistance in preparing this chapter.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 ‘Structure as the medium and outcome of the conduct it recursively organizes; the structural properties of social systems do not exist outside of action but are chronically implicated in its production and reproduction’ (Giddens, 1984, p. 374).

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Notes on contributors

Karim Knio

Karim Knio (PhD, University of Birmingham, UK) is Associate Professor in Politics at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is the current Associate Managing Editor of European Political Science Review (EPSR). His research focuses on the political economy of governance with an emphasis on regionalism and trade. He also has research interests in varieties of capitalism, institutional analysis, politics of crisis management, EU democracy promotion programs and Lebanese politics. He is the author of The European Union’s Mediterranean policy: Model or muddle? A new institutionalist perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and The South China Sea and Asian regionalism: A critical realist perspective – with Thanhdam Truong (Springer, 2016). His recent 2019 edited book with Bob Jessop, entitled The pedagogy of economic, political and social crises: Dynamics, construals and lessons, is published by Routledge.