Neoliberalism and Natural Disaster

Abstract

A substantial recent literature has examined insurance as a mechanism for economizing uncertain but potentially catastrophic events. Less attention has been paid to how insurantial techniques for economizing catastrophe have been deployed as political technologies. Focusing on discussions of US flood policy in the 1960s, the present article examines how insurance was used to forge new articulations and accommodations between political government and processes of rationalization. On the one hand, insurance provided a technical solution to problems that had long confronted US policy-makers: How to reduce losses from floods? How to fully compensate individuals who suffered losses? On the other hand, insurance was a device for reshaping the aims and objects of government, and for reframing questions that are more frequently situated at the level of political philosophy: What are the respective responsibilities of individual citizens and government in providing security? What tradeoffs must be made between the provision of security and economic rationality? What values are relevant in orienting public policy? In examining these issues, the article raises questions about standard narratives about the changing relations among risk, responsibility, and security in recent decades, particularly as they relate to neoliberalism.

KEYWORDS:

• neoliberalism
• catastrophe
• risk
• economization
• calculation
• insurance

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful for helpful feedback on this article provided by Marc Boeckler, Kristina Klimovich, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, Andrew Lakoff, Helen Ridsdale, Austin Zeiderman, and three anonymous readers.

Notes

1. This is a moment of reflexive modernization in Beck's (1992) sense: modernity becomes its own problem and theme.

2. Callon defines economization as the way that ‘things, behaviors, and processes become economic.’ Just as there are many different kinds of economics, there are different forms of economization. The accent is placed not only on whether things are economized but also on what kind of economization is in question (Caliskan & Callon 2009).

3. The notion of ‘topology’ I have in mind is explored in Collier (2009).