ABSTRACT
Neoliberalism has achieved a vast expansion and pervaded academic writing in almost all areas that concern the scholars such as feminism, citizenship, cities, sexuality, to name a few. Scholars suggest that it is a dominant ideology around us that shapes the world today (Munck, 2005), while others have rejected its existence (Barnett, 2005) and called it a necessary illusion (Castree, 2006). It does not have a clear definition, and the consensus about its meaning appears to be not emerging (Springer, 2012; Thorsen and Lie, 2006). While the basic elements of neoliberalism resonate with those of classical liberalism especially some of the vocabulary that has extended and revitalized its reach in present times, Castree (2006) presents an inability to ‘fix’ its meanings with real-world referents’ stemming from the use of multiple definitions. Literature is full of such terms as ‘distinct ideology’, ‘political ideology’, ‘dominant ideology’, ‘hegemony’, a ‘new paradigm’, ‘political philosophy’ and lately a ‘discourse’. Nevertheless, the meaning is elusive, and convergence diminishes with each consequent attempt to define and describe ‘neoliberalism’.
