ABSTRACT
The biopolitics of population and the reassertion of the sovereign right to kill and to execute exceptions to the liberal rights of citizenship suggest neoliberal governmentalities are increasingly rent with contradictions. On the one hand, neoliberal government operates from afar through individualized technologies of the self and through dispersed expert/bureaucratic/ managerial decision making. Market models of government increasingly replace state-directed ones in the public sphere as social welfare and education are either privatized or operated in accord with “free-market” strategies and technologies. These reforms are viewed as disciplining and/or transforming the ineffi cient apparatuses of the welfare state. Moreover, contemporary market mechanisms extend neoliberal technologies of government globally through contracts (e.g., international trade agreements and organizations), transnational corporations, and through international fi nance, securities, and related derivatives. Although market mechanisms involve dispersed sovereignty and disciplines, these tend to be viewed as impersonal and necessary for secure and expansive market operations.
