Neoliberal Globalization and Heightened Perceptions of Class Division in Iceland

Abstract

This article uses the case of Iceland to study how neoliberal globalization impacts class discourse in the political field and broader perceptions of class division. Analyzing a leading newspaper and parliamentary debates from 1986–2012, I show how neoliberal globalization—especially by increasing economic inequality—created a disjuncture between an increasingly differentiated social space and a national habitus cultivated in a small, homogeneous, and egalitarian society. This undermined taken-for-granted assumptions of relative classlessness and heightened perceptions of class division during a neoliberal ascendancy period from 1995 to Iceland's economic collapse in September 2008.

Keywords::

• neoliberal globalization
• perceptions of class division
• Iceland
• crisis
• classlessness
• political field

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Editors Betty Dobratz and Lisa Waldner and the anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments that helped strengthen the article. I am also very grateful to the scholars who provided helpful feedback on early drafts: Jón Gunnar Bernburg, þóroddur Bjarnason, Wayne Brekhus, E. Paul Durrenberger, Ingi R. EÐvarÐsson, John F. Galliher, Helgi Gunnlaugsson, Joan Hermsen, Ingólfur Á. Jóhannesson, Victoria Johnson, GuÐmundur Magnússon, Hermann Óskarsson, Gísli Pálsson, Amit Prasad, John C. Pruit, Sandy Rikoon, Kolbeinn Stefánsson, and Jenny Stuber. The research on which this article is based was funded by the Icelandic Center for Research (Rannís) (grant number 100950001). An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 2014, San Francisco, California.

NOTE

Notes

¹ The Gini coefficient estimates inequality in an income distribution on a range from 0 to 1. A value of 0 expresses perfect equality, whereas 1 represents maximum inequality, that is, when one individual gets all the income. To equivalize incomes means to weight individuals in a household differently to take household size into account. Both Gini coefficients are for disposable income, including capital gains. Gini coefficients were unavailable for some years.

Using public tax data, Jónsson et al. (2001) and Ólafsson and Kristjánsson (2012) calculated the Gini coefficients for equivalized individual incomes and Ólafsson and Kristjánsson (2014) calculated the coefficients for married and cohabiting couples.