ABSTRACT
The hegemony of neoliberal discourse and practice – the claim of the superiority
of the market mechanism and competition-driven processes of capitalist devel-
opment over state-driven pathways of social and economic organization, the
limitation of government to the protection of individual rights, especially prop-
erty rights, privatization of state enterprises and the liberalization of formerly
strictly regulated and government administered markets – has been challenged in
different national and international arenas around the globe. Failures of ‘shock
therapies’ in Eastern European transition economies, the Asian financial crisis of
1997, and the collapse of the dot.com market certainly have not aided arguments
in favor of self-regulation and private enrichment as beneficial to all. Some
observers have – somewhat prematurely, to be sure, considering recent successes
of the neoliberal right in Italy and France, for example – suggested that the rise
of new social democratic parties to power in various European countries con-
stituted the end of neoliberalism (equated with Thatcher/Reagan government
policies). Nobel Prizes in economics in recent years – previously awarded to
hard-core neoliberal thinkers such as Hayek, Friedman, Buchanan, and Becker –
have gone to the likes of development economist Amartya Sen and World
Bank insider-turned-critic Joseph E. Stiglitz. These developments, along with
others, have been interpreted by some as indications that a ‘post-Washington
consensus’ is emerging, reinserting an ethical dimension into the holy triad of
global ‘liberalization, privatization and deregulation’ (Higgott 2000). Last but not
least, the Enron collapse linked to the bursting of the bubble economy and the
protectionist moves of the US government of George W. Bush after the Septem-
ber 11 attacks1 certainly helped to undermine the legitimacy of global neoliberal
agendas.
