Matthew Eagleton-Pierce

Neoliberalism: The Key Concepts provides a critical guide to a vocabulary that has become globally dominant over the past forty years. The language of neoliberalism both constructs and expresses a particular vision of economics, politics, and everyday life. Some find this vision to be appealing, but many others find the contents and implications of neoliberalism to be alarming.Despite the popularity of these concepts, they often remain confusing, the product of contested histories, meanings, and practices. In an accessible way, this interdisciplinary resource explores and dissects key terms such as:

Capitalism
Choice
Competition
Entrepreneurship
Finance
Flexibility
Freedom
Governance
Market
Reform
Stakeholder
State

Complete with an introductory essay, cross-referencing, and an extensive bibliography, this book provides a unique and insightful introduction to the study of neoliberalism in all its forms and disguises.

Questions of power are central to understanding global trade politics and no account of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can afford to avoid at least an acknowledgment of the concept. A closer examination of power can help us to explain why the structures and rules of international commerce take their existing forms, how the actions of countries are either enabled or disabled, and what distributional outcomes are achieved. However, within conventional accounts, there has been a tendency to either view power according to a single reading - namely the direct, coercive sense - or to overlook the concept entirely, focusing instead on liberal cooperation and legalization. In this book, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce shows that each of these approaches betray certain limitations which, in turn, have cut short, or worked against, more critical appraisals of power in transnational capitalism. To expand the intellectual space, the book investigates the complex relationship between power and legitimation by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's notion of symbolic power. A focus on symbolic power aims to alert scholars to how the construction of certain knowledge claims are fundamental to, and entwined within, the material struggle for international trade. Empirically, the argument uncovers and plots the recent strategies adopted by Southern countries in their pursuit of a more equitable trading order. By bringing together insights from political economy, sociology, and law, Symbolic Power in the WTO not only enlivens and enriches the study of diplomatic practice within a major multilateral institution, it also advances the broader understanding of power in world politics.

Managerialism has become increasingly incorporated into the practices of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) in recent decades. To date, IPE has largely failed to examine how and why the managerial ethic has weaved itself into the fabric of prominent INGOs that have a stake in the global economy. The limited IPE literature that has addressed such activity has either cast such changes as part of a culture of professionalisation or as an outgrowth of neoliberalism. This article seeks to question these readings by directly dissecting how managerialism operates within a milieu which has been historically critical of capitalism. The argument is underpinned by conceptual insights from critical management studies, particularly how managerialism is associated with instrumental rationality and control. In relation to international development policy, the article examines the major macro institutional and ideological factors that have encouraged the spread of managerialism. To deepen our understanding of these trends, the article offers new empirics on the struggle over managerialism within Oxfam GB, from a limited imprint in the 1980s to increasing normalisation from the early 2000s. The article calls for IPE to better unmask the internal politics of INGOs and, in turn, connect such evidence to wider structural tendencies.

Neoliberalism has become a common, if contested, frame of reference for IPE to understand the governance of the global economy. In examining such complex terrain, this chapter begins by offering four prominent starting points for the analysis of neoliberalism: (1) as a history of intellectual ideas; (2) as a system of enhanced capitalist power; (3) as a cultural examination of everyday conduct; and (4) as a more generic, post-Marxist expression to denote the current zeitgeist. The discussion proceeds to dissect neoliberalism via three major 'acts': (1) from the late 1970s to the early 1990s; (2) from the mid 1990s to the mid 2000s; and (3) from the late 2000s to the present. Significant contributions from IPE are discussed in relation to the wider empirical context.

A range of socioeconomic dislocations have spawned renewed interest in the capitalist system and its critiques. Within these trends, the politics of international trade has often been a flashpoint for civil society organisations (CSOs) concerned with social justice. This paper uncovers a neglected feature of this landscape: how, since the 1980s, certain CSOs have shifted from being 'radical outsiders' to 'reformist insiders' to protest the design and purpose of global trade. We know why CSOs have criticised the political economy of trade, but less about how they have historically struggled to gain admission into this policy milieu; their internal strategising and tensions; and what makes for effective protest. To understand such experimentation, this paper argues that literature on professionalisation offers a valuable lens for exploring the relationship between expertise and power. Dovetailing with other research in IPS, it adapts Bourdieu's comparatively underused concept of scientific capital to explicate how certain, prized dispositional qualities were acquired and practiced for the purpose of registering policy impact. This argument is developed through the case of Oxfam. When viewed historically, the paper suggests that a professionalised, activist subjectivity has emerged within certain CSOs, defined here under a new ideal-type notion of the 'critical technician'.

Neoliberalism: The Key Concepts provides a critical guide to a vocabulary that has become globally dominant over the past forty years. The language of neoliberalism both constructs and expresses a particular vision of economics, politics, and everyday life. Some find this vision to be appealing, but many others find the contents and implications of neoliberalism to be alarming. Despite the popularity of these concepts, they often remain confusing, the product of contested histories, meanings, and practices. In an accessible way, this interdisciplinary resource explores and dissects key terms such as: capitalism, choice, competition, entrepreneurship, finance, flexibility, freedom, governance, market, reform, stakeholder, and state. This introduction clarifies the context behind the rise of neoliberalism as an analytical term, its possibilities and pitfalls, and the rationale for the book. Overall, the book provides a unique and insightful introduction to the study of neoliberalism in all its forms and disguises.

What is new about neoliberalism? Such a question immediately implies that certain objects and processes can be defined as ‘neoliberal’ and, importantly, that the contents of the ‘neo’ can be explained by reference to a larger phenomenon called liberalism. A veritable galaxy of things are now attached to the term neoliberalism, if not as some primary identifying marker then at least as one descriptive property among others. This chapter seeks to offer a window through which to problematise and analyze this core if recalcitrant question. In keeping with other debates in the social sciences, it proposes that the frame of neoliberalism tries to capture something about developments in capitalism since the 1970s, with commodification, financialisation, and general moves towards ‘market-based’ modes of regulation or governmentality being major debates in the literature (Harvey 2005; Brenner, Peck, and Theodore, 2010; Peck, Theodore, and Brenner 2012; Springer 2010).

While accepting this temporal frame as a starting point, the chapter seeks to contextualise the history of neoliberalism in two ways. First, the chapter sheds a sharper light on the relationship between capitalism and its mechanisms of legitimation, particularly at the level of everyday experience. Second, within the inevitable space constraints, the argument traces certain threads of meaning that connect the history of the liberal tradition to the present, specifically the themes of individualism, universalism, and meliorism. Thus, the chapter aims to reveal how justifications for neoliberal capitalist practices are the product of a long history of social struggles that are, moreover, often confusing, multifarious, and even contradictory. Ironically, once this perspective is recognised, the task of deciphering contemporary neoliberalism arguably becomes harder, particularly concerning efforts to understand where certain ideas and values tied to neoliberalism acquire their commonsensical power. If neoliberalism is a moving concept then scholarship needs to be equally adept at moving with it.

This chapter investigates the making of expert knowledge in relation to international trade policy and how such processes are intertwined with forms of power. Similar to other spheres of capitalism, our understanding of the power-knowledge nexus can help to inform questions of participation, agenda-setting and material outcomes within formal trade politics. A focus on such links can also shed light on how professional experts within this field often struggle over the sources and techniques of legitimation. In keeping with the aims of this book, to explore how authoritative claims on trade knowledge shape the topography of the (im)possible, the argument here probes the recent history of a particular organization: Oxfam International. As one of the most recognizable voices in civil society, Oxfam offers an interesting illustration for how a critique of capitalism, rooted in a sense of social justice, can register a place in debates on trade policy. Within the space constraints here, the argument explores how Oxfam analysts carved out this position and, in particular, unpicks some of the core strategies and styles of such labor. In doing so, this chapter complements and enriches existing literature, not only in respect to the analysis of civil society groups in trade politics but, more broadly, our understanding of how alternative heterodox opinions can contest orthodox forms of knowledge.

To prosecute this enquiry, the chapter deploys a conceptual framework informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, specifically, his notion of symbolic power. By adopting this sociological optic, the argument aims to offer fresh insights into the social construction of linguistic authority within the policy milieu of trade politics. In particular, a Bourdieusian perspective targets the ways in which forms of power acquire recognition and, in doing so, can enlighten our understanding of the possibilities for agency within constrained social spaces. The chapter is thus organized into three main sections. First, in an initial contextual discussion, the chapter situates the problem area in relation to the complex legacy of social critique within transnational trade policymaking. Second, the conceptual toolkit on symbolic power is outlined and unpacked, including broader empirical illustrations drawn from trade issues. In the third section, the framework on symbolic power is applied to explain the specific case of Oxfam’s rise in trade policy debates. The chapter ends with some concluding remarks, including notable caveats to the larger argument and pathways for considering further research.

Through combining insights from political economy and sociology, this article explains the early genesis of the policy notion of governance in relation to ideological changes in capitalism. Such an approach has tended to be neglected in existing conceptual histories, in the process, undermining a sharper politicization of the term and how it became normalized. The argument dissects how the emergence of governance can be understood in light of a relationship between political crises, social critique and justificatory arguments (centered around security and justice claims) that form part of an ideological ‘spirit of capitalism’. Through a distinctive comparison between the creation of ‘corporate governance’ in the 1970s and the formulation of a ‘governance agenda’ by the World Bank from the 1980s, the article elucidates how the concept, within certain policy uses, but by no means all, can reflect and help constitute a neoliberal spirit of capitalism.

Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's theorising, and considering the limitations of conventional notions of power used to study trade politics, this chapter argues that a critical framework on symbolic power is of intellectual importance. The notion of symbolic power offers a way to conceptualise how political language both reflects and constitutes power. There are three sections. First, the discussion considers how power can take more covert, 'taken-for-granted' forms that are often missed in traditional power notions. Second, the argument debates the complex relationship between power, language, and processes of political legitimation. Bourdieu's notion of a 'linguistic market' is explained and applied to WTO politics. The third part explores two complementary conceptual tools: framing and mimicry. Together, the chapter argues that these concepts can help refine our understanding for how mechanisms of legitimation work in the service of symbolic power to favour some issues and groups over others in the WTO system.

Since 2003, the West and Central African (WCA) cotton initiative in the World Trade Organization has stood as an ambitious case of Africa's desire to be integrated into the trading system and yet also receive reparations for past injuries. This article seeks to explore how and why the initiative debuted through close attention to the interdependence between power and language in diplomatic practice. It takes the concept of cognitive framing to explore the relationship between political legitimacy and mobilisation capacities. The genesis of cotton as ‘an issue’ is critically examined, focusing on how the WCA countries constructed a novel ‘competitive victim’ frame to define themselves and the problem. While this opening move was effective, it also featured tensions that were exploited by Northern actors who were threatened by the campaign. I argue that what followed was the introduction of a politically driven ‘counterframe’, which divided the problem into a ‘trade-related’ component and a ‘development-related’ component. It is important to understand why and how this distinction was constructed and monitored. By scrutinising the relationship between framing and institutional power, I suggest that the counterframe won over the original frame, leading to a re-positioning of the demanders and a re-calibration of their expectations.

This article advances a call for greater reflexivity in International Relations (IR) to uncover various intellectual and political biases that may obscure the research process. Inspired by existing reflexive practices in IR and, in particular, Pierre Bourdieu’s use of such a method, it argues that reflexivity matters for enhancing ethically grounded research, in terms of not only the choice of subjects to study, but also how specific problems are treated, and hence what kind of results can be expected. However, the argument also goes beyond the appeal to autobiographical reflexivity to embrace other dimensions. This includes attention to institutional forces that shape the agency of the scholar and, in turn, the complex relationship between the academy and the wider political world. In the most ambitious sense, the potential for reflexivity can also be conceived collectively in terms of activist intellectuals who seek to reward reflexive practices through dialogue and political intervention. The social space of international trade politics is taken as an empirical example.

The analysis of political life is largely based on the written word. In both academic and ‘real world’ debates on politics, the examination of texts – books, journal articles, official reports, declarations etc. – is central and highly prized. All of the great political speeches in history began life on a blank page before a word was even uttered. In your studies as a politics student, it should not be surprising, therefore, that the practice of writing will occupy a major proportion of your time. This will involve you doing different types of writing, including shorter presentation outlines in seminars, book reviews, examination answers and larger dissertations. This guide is focused on the art of essay writing, although many of the recommendations expressed below will be relevant to the other forms of writing you will conduct. At the outset, it is important to underscore that there is no single ‘correct’ way to write a great politics essay but, rather, many potential avenues that could be selected. However, this guide contains a series of suggestions and tips that, if acted upon in an effective manner, may increase the likelihood of you achieving higher marks and enjoying the essay writing experience.

Talk: 'Neoliberalism as Analytical Starting Point: Possibilities and Problems' (22:47), University of Oxford, 'Neoliberalism, Employment and the Law Workshop’, Wolfson College, hosted by the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, November 19, 2015.