Neoliberalizations: Alternative Conceptions - Teaching Assistant
Spring 2015
Neoliberalizations:
Alternative Conceptions, Case Studies and Unresolved Controversies
CRN 7099/ GSOC 6204 A
CRN 7942/ GPOL 6204 A
Carlos A. Forment
Graduate Faculty---New School for Social Research
Dept. of Sociology, 6 East 16th Street
Room #917
E-Mail: formentc@newschool.edu
Course Meetings: Monday, 3.50 to 5.30 pm
6 East 16th Street, Room #901
Office Hours: Monday 6.00 to 8.00pm (for appointments: sign your name on the sheet that is affixed to my office door; include your email).
Course Description
The aim of this seminar is to make sense of the ongoing debate over the general character and changing practices of neoliberalism, a subject that continues to attract, elude and generate controversy among a great many scholars in the human sciences. Note: in our discussions, neoliberalism will be used as an analytical category rather than as a term of opprobrium.
The course is divided into three parts. In the first, we explore the alternative conceptions and unresolved controversies that continue to divide scholars of neoliberalism. Although their disputes are usually expressed in methodological terms, they are motivated mainly by ethico-political concerns that are almost never articulated and made part of the discussion.
In the second part of the course we study the emergence of neoliberal doctrine, beginning with the German Ordo-Liberals of the 1930’s, the members of the Mont Pelerin Society in the 1940’s, and Milton Friedman and some of his colleagues in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s who went on to play a leading role in transforming Chile into a market-centered society.
In the third section part of the course, we examine some of the most insightful and influential accounts of neoliberalism: Neomarxist; Foucauldian; Disaffiliationist and Polanyian.
According to Neomarxists, neoliberalism is a byproduct of the structural contradictions in the global economy, that has now provoked a shift from ‘post-industrial’ to ‘financial’ forms of capitalism.
Foucauldians argue that neoliberalism is a radically novel form of governance that seeks to promote market-centered forms of life and ‘homo economicus’ forms of subjectification.
Disaffiliationists study the different ways that ‘risk’ and ‘flexibilization’ in the workplace have contributed to the unraveling of interpersonal relations and to the creation of ‘disassociated’ hyper-individualists.
Polanyians examine the way that neoliberalism has brought about the commodification of public and private life and provoked a ‘double-movement’ against it among citizens from all walks of life.
In the fourth part of the course we focus on “actually existing neoliberalism” by analyzing a broad range of case studies from across the ‘globalized south’ and the ‘post-keynesian north’ in order to understand some of the different ways that citizens in daily life have experienced and transformed financialization, governmentality, disaffiliation and commodification.
Readings
The readings have been uploaded to Concourse, except those (mainly books) that have been marked with an (*) asterisk. You are responsible for retrieving this material and also for checking periodically the course website for any announcements.
Requirements, Evaluations and Grades
You are expected to complete all the required readings for each week. You should also read a few of the recommended readings (25%).
In addition, each student is responsible for leading, along with other classmates, several seminar discussions based on the readings (required and recommended) that have been assigned for that particular week (25%).
Presenters are responsible for uploading to Concourse a copy of their memo (3-5 pp.) twenty-four hours prior to our seminar meeting (40%). These memos will frame our discussions.
Each student is required to evaluate the presentation and memos of each presenter and to grade it (A, A-, B+, B, B- and so on), and which I will use to compute the final average (10%).
Etiquette and Protocol
If you bring a laptop to class be considerate of your colleagues and make sure that you use it only for taking notes (not for internet surfing, email exchanges, etc.). Remember to turn off your cell-phones before you enter the class.
READINGS AND SCHEDULE
Part One: States, Market and Selfhood
Week 1: 26 January.
Introduction:
Required:
Pierre Bourdieu, “The Essence of Neoliberalism,” Le Monde Diplomatique (English Edition, December 1998).
John Clarke, “Living with/in and without Neoliberalism,” Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, 51 (2008) 735-747.
Louis Wacquant, “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism,” Social Anthropology, 20:1 (2012) 66-79.
Stephen J. Collier, “Neoliberalism as Big Leviathan,” Social Anthropology, 20:1 (2012) 186-195.
Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore, “Reanimating Neoliberalism: Process, Geographies of Neoliberalism,” Social Anthropology, 20:1 (2012) 177-185.
Week 2: 2 February.
Emergence of Neo-Liberal Doctrine
Required:
Dieter Plehwe, “Introduction,” The Road from Mont Pelerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective, (eds.) D. Plehwe and Philip Mirowski (Harvard University Press, 2009) 1-44.
Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Condensed Version, Reader’s Digest, 1945) 39-70.
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Liberty Fund, 1981) 3-11
Gary Becker, “Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior,” Journal of Political Economy, 101: 3 (1993) 38-52.
Recommended:
*William Davies, The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition (Sage, 2014).
Ben Jackson, “At the Origins of Neoliberalism: the Free Economy and the Strong State: 1930-1947,” The Historical Journal, 53:1 (2010) 129-151 and/or
Raewyn Connell and Nour Dedos, “Where in the World does Neoliberalism Come From,” Theory and Society, 43 (2014) 117-138.
Part Two: Alternative Accounts of Neo-Liberalism
Week 3: 9 February
Neo-Marxist: Financialization, Class Rule and Economic Crisis
Required:
David Harvey, “Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 610: 21 (2007) 22-44.
G. Dumenil and D. Levy, “Costs and Benefits of Neoliberalism: A Class Analysis,” Review of International Political Economy, 8:4 (2001) 578-607.
G. Dumenil and D. Levy, “The Crisis of the Early 21st Century: A Critical Review of Alternative Interpretations,” (CNRS: Preliminary draft, 2012)
Recommended:
J.W. Mason, “The Crisis of Neoliberalism by G. Dumenil and D. Levy; Book Review,” Rethinking Marxism (26:4 (2014) 603-607.
16 February (President’s Day)
Week 4: 23 February.
Foucauldian Bio-Politics and Governmentality
M. Foucault, “Governmentality,” The Foucault Effect (eds.) G Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (The University of Chicago Press, 1991) 87-104.
Thomas Lemke “The Birth of Bio-politics: Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the College de France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality, Economy and Society, 30:2 (2001) 190-207.
Thomas Lemke, “Foucault, Governmentality and Critique,” Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture and Society (14:3 (2002) 49-64.
Recommended:
*Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (Sage, 1999) chapters 1, 2, 9 and conclusion.
Andrew Dilts, “From Entrepreneur of the Self’ to ‘Care of the Self:’ Neoliberal Governmentality and Foucault’s Ethics,” Foucault Studies, 12 (2011) 130-146.
Week 5: 2 March
Precarization of Work, Social Disaffiliation and Hyper-Individualism:
Required:
Robert Castel, “The Road to Dissaffiliation: Insecure Work and Vulnerable Relationships,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24:3 (September, 2006) 519-535.
Christopher Dejours and Jean-Phillipe Deranty, “The Centrality of Work,” Critical Horizons, 11: 2 (2010) 167-180.
*Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (W.W. Norton, 1998) chapter 1,2,3.
Guy Standing, “Understanding the Precariat Through Labor and Work,” Development and Change, 45:5 (2014) 963-980.
Recommended:
Neilson, B., & Rossiter, N. “Precarity as a Political Concept, or, Fordism as Exception,” Theory, Culture & Society, 25:7-8 (2008), 51-72.
Guy Standing, “The Precariat: From Denizen to Citizen,” Polity, 44:4 (October 2012) 588-608.
Axel Honneth, “Organized Self-Realization,” European Journal of Social Theory, 7:4 (2004) 463-478.
Axel Honneth and Martin Hartmann, “Paradoxes of Capitalism,” Constellations, 13:1 (2006) 41-58.
Anders Petersen and Rasmus Willig, “Work and Recognition: Reviewing New Forms of Pathological Developments,” Acta Sociologica, 47:4 (December, 2004) 338-350.
Nicholas H. Smith, “Work and the Struggle for Recognition,” European Journal of Political Theory, 8:1 (January, 2009) 46-60.
Week 6: 9 March.
Embeddedness, Commodification and the Double Movement:
Required:
Christopher Holmes, Introduction: A Post-Polanyian Political Economy for our Times,” Economy and Society, 43:4 (2014) 525-540.
Fred Blok, “Polanyi’s Double Movement and the Reconstruction of Critical Theory,” Revue Interventions Economiques, 38 (CNRS, 2008).
Gareth Dale, “Double Movement and Pendulum Forces: Polanyian Perspectives on the Neoliberal Age,” Current Sociology, 60 (July 2012) 13-27.
Nancy Fraser, “A Triple Movement: Parsing the Politics of Crisis After Polanyi,” New Left Review, 81 (May-June 2013)
Recommended:
Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly Silver, “Polanyi’s Double Movement: The Belle Epoques of British and US. Hegemony Compared,” Politics and Society, 31:2 (2003) 325-355.
Peter Evans, “The New Commons versus the Second Enclosure Movement,” Comparative International Development, 40:5 (2005).
C. Holmes, “Problems and Opportunities in Polanyian Analysis Today,” Economy and Society, 41:3 (2012) 468-484.
Nancy Fraser, “Can Society be Commodities All the Way Down? Post-Polanyian Reflections on Capitalist Crisis,” Economy and SOcieyt, 43:4 (November 2014) 541-558.
Nina Bandely, Kristin Shortette and Elizabeth , “Work and Neoliberal Globalization: A Polanyian Synthesis,” Sociology Compass, 5:9 (September 2011) 807-823.
Part Three: Case Studies
Week 7: 16 March
Spread of Neoliberalism:
Required:
David Harvey, “Uneven Geographical Development,” A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005) 87-119.
Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas and Sarah Babb, “The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries,” American Journal of Sociology, 108:3 (2002) 533-579.
Aihwa Ong, “Neoliberalism as Mobile Technology,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32:1 (January 2007) 3-8.
Neil Brenner, “Variegated Neoliberalism: Geographies, Modalities and Pathways,” Global Networks, 10:2 (2010) 182-222.
I. Gershon, “Neoliberal Agency,” Current Anthropology, 52 (2011) 537-355.
Recommended:
Johanna Bockman and Gil Eyal, “Eastern Europe as a Laboratory for Economic Knowledge: The Transnational Roots of Neoliberalism,” American Journal of Sociology, 108:2 (2002) 310-352.
23-29 March (Spring Break)
Week 8: 30 March.
Institutionalizing Neoliberalism: The Case of China
David Harvey, “Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics,” A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005) 120-151.
Andre Kipnis, “Neoliberalism Reified: Suzhi discourse and tropes of neoliberalism in the Peoples’ Republic of China,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13:2 (June 2007) 383-400.
Donald Nonini, “Is China Becoming Neoliberal?” Critique of Anthropology 28:2 (2008) 145-176.
Hai Ren, The Neoliberal State and Risk Society: The Chinese State and the Middle Class, Telos, 151 (Summer 2010) 105-218.
Shenjin He and Fulong Wu, “China’s Emerging Neoliberal Urbanism,” Antipode, 41:2 (2009) 282-304.
Recommneded:
Leong Liew, “China's Engagement with Neo-liberalism: Path Dependency, Geography and Party Self-Invention.” Journal of Development Studies, 41:2 (2005) 331-52.
Li Enshen, “The Neoliberal Penalty Thesis in China: When Western Theory Meets Chinese Reality, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 25:3 (March 2014) 803-817.
C.K. Lee, “From the Specter of Mao to the Sprit of the Law: Labor Insurgency in China,” Theory and Society, 31 (2002) 189-228.
Week 9: 6 April
Restructuring Welfare States and Public Life in the Post-Keynesian North
Required:
James Peck and Andrew Tickell, “Neoliberalizing Space,” Antipode, 34 (2002) 380-404.
David Harvey, "The Neoliberal State." A Brief History of Neoliberalism,
(Oxford University Press, 2005), 64-86.
Loic Wacquant, “Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare and Social Insecurity,” Sociological Forum, 25:2 (2010) 197–220.
Kus Basak, “Neoliberalism, Institutional Change and the Welfare State: The Case of Britain and France,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 47:6 (2006) 488-525.
Recommended:
Duane Swank and Hans George Betz, “Globalization, the Welfare State and Right Wing Populism in Western Europe,” Socio-Economic Review, 1 (2003) 215-245.
Pat O’Malley, “Prisons, Neoliberalism and Neoliberalism States: Reading Loic Wacquant and Prison of Poverty, Thesis Eleven, (2014) 122:1 (2014) 89-96.
John L. Campbell, “Neoliberalism’s Penal and Debtor State,” Theoretical Criminology, 14:1 (2010) 59-73.
Week 10: 13 April
Restructuring Developmental States and Public Life in the Globalized South
Required:
James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, “Spatializing States: Towards an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality,” American Ethnologist, 29:4 (2002) 981–1002.
Hugo Radice, The Developmental State under Global Neoliberalism,” Third World Quarterly, 29:6 (2008) 1153-1174.
M. Shamsul Haque, “Global Rise of Neoliberal State and its Impact on Citizenship: Experiences in Developing Nations,” Asian Journal of Social Science, 36 (2008) 11-34
Aihwa Ong, “Graduated Sovereignty in South East Asia, Theory, Culture and Society, 17:4 (2000) 55-75.
Partha Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed (Columbia University, (Columbia University Press, 2002) chapters 1-2.
Recommended:
James Ferguson, “Toward a Left Art of Government: From Foucaldian Critique to Foucaldian Politics,” History of the Human Sciences, 24:4 (2011) 61-88.
Lena Lavinas, “21st Century Welfare,” New Left Review, 84 (November-December 2013) 5-40.
Eugene Dili Liow, “The Neoliberal-Developmental State: Singapore as a Case Study,” Critical Sociology, 38:2 (2012) 241-264.
Week 11: 20 April
Urban Fragmentation: Gated Communities and Slums
Required:
David Harvey, “Rights to the City,” New Left Review, 53 (September-October 2008) 23-40.
Peter Marcuse, “The Enclave, The Citadel and the Ghetto. What has Changes in the Post-Fordist US City,” Urban Affairs, 33:2 (November 1997) 228-264.
Nazar Alsayyd and Ananya Roy, “Medieval Modernity: On Citizenship and Urbanism in a Global Era,” Space and Polity, 10:1 (April 2006) 1-20.
Neil Smith, “New Globalism, New Urbanism. Gentrification as a Global Urban Strategy,” Antipode, 34:3 (2002) 427-50
M. Davis, Planets of Slums,” New Left Review, 25:5 (204) 5-34.
Recommended:
Marco Allegra, Anna Casaglia and Jonathan Rokem, “The Political Geographies of Urban Polarization: A Critical Review of Research on Divided Cities,” Geography Compass, 6:9 (2012) 560-574.
Benajmim Goldfrank and A Schraak, “Municipal Neoliberalism and Municipal Socialism: Urban Political Economy in Latin America,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33:2 (2009) 443-462.
Teresa P. Caldeira, “Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation,” Public Culture, 8:2 (1996) 303-328.
Ozan Karamaj, Urban Neoliberalism with Islamic Characteristics, Urban Studies, 50: (December 2013)
Week 12: 27 April.
Informalization and Casualization of Work and Life
Required:
Mike Denning, “Wageless Life,” New Left Review, 66 (2010)
A, Kallenberg, “Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition,” American Sociological Review, 74:1 (2009) 1-22.
Hannah Lewis, Peter Dwyer, Stuart Hodkinson and Louise White, “Hyper-Precarious Lives: Migrants, Work and Forced Labor in the Global North,” Progress in Human Geography, (2014) 1-21.
Jamie Peck and Theodore Nik, “Politicizing Contingent Work: Countering Neoliberal Labor Market Regulation from the Ground Up,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 111:4 (201) 741-761
Recommended:
Denis World and Joseph Bongiovi, “Precarious, Informalizing and Flexible Work: Transforming Concepts and Understandings,” American Behavioral Scientists,” 58:3 (March 2013) 289-308
Ronaldo Munck, “The Precariat: A View from the South,” Third World Quarterly, 34:5 (2013) 747-762.
Chin Kwan Lee and Yelizavetta Kofman, “The Politics of Precarity: A View Beyond the United States,” Work and Occupations, 39:4 (2012) 388-408.
Ali Nobil Ahmad, “Dead Men working: Time and Space in London’s ‘Illegal’ Migrant Economy,” Work, Employment and Society, 22:2 (2008) 301-318.
Week 13: 4 May
Decommodifying Public Life and the Double Movement
Required:
Michael Burawoy, “From Polanyi to Pollyanna: The False Optimism of Global Labor Studies,” Global Labour Journal, 1:2 (2010) 301-313
Peter Evans, “Is an Alternative Globalizaion Possible?” Politics and Society, 36:2 (2008)
Franco Barchiesi, “Informality and Casualization as Challenges to South Africa’s Industrial Unionism: Manufacturing Workers in the East Rand/Ekurhuleni Region in the 1990’s,” African Studies Quarterly, 11:2-3 (Spring 2010)
Andrew Ross, “The New Geography of Work,” Theory, Society and Culture, 25:7 (2008) 31-49.
Roberto Roccu, “David Harvey in Tahrir Square: The Dispossessed, the Discontented and the Egyptian Revolution,” Third World Quarterly, 34:3 (2013) 423-440.
James Holston, Insurgent Citizenship in an Era of Global Urban Peripheries,” City and Society, 21:2 (2009) 245-267.
Carlos A. Forment, “Emergent Forms of Plebeian Citizenship: Everyday Ethical Practices in Buenos Aires’ La Salada’s Market,” Cultural Anthropology (forthcoming).
Recommended:
Peter Evans, Reconstructing Polanyi in the Late Neoliberal Era: A Critical but Optimistic Perspective,” (Typescript, Social Movement Seminar, July 2014).
Asef Bayat, “Politics in the City-Inside-Out,” City and Society, 24:2 (2012) 110-128.
Tanya Casas, “Transcending the Coloniality of Development: Moving Beyond Human/Nature Hierarchies,” American Behavioral Scientists, 58:1 (2014) 30-52.
Michael Levien, India’s Double Movement: Polanyi and the National Alliance of People’s Movement,” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 51 (2007) 119-149
Michael Levien, The Politics of Dispossession: Theorizing India’s Land Wars,” Politics and Society, 4:3 (2013) 251-394.
Week 14: 11 May.
Indebtedness, Credit and Financialization
A) Indebtedness
Johnna Montgomerie, “The Pursuit of (Past) Happiness: Middle Class Indebtedness and American Financialization,” New Political Economy, 14:1 (2009) 1-24.
B) Subprime Mortgages
Raquel Rolnik, Late Neoliberalism: The Financialization of Homeownership and Housing Rights, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37:3 (May 2013) 1058-1066
C) Micro-Lending
Ananya Roy, Subjects of Risk: Technologies of Gender in The Making of Millenial Capitalism,” Public Culture, 24:1 (2012) 131-155.
D) Student Debt
Linda E. Coco, “Mortgaging Human Potential: Student Indebtedness and the of the Neoliberal State,” Southwestern Law Review, 42 () 565-603.
Jeffrey William,, “Student Debt: Bad for the Young, Bad for America,” Dissent (2006)
Recommended:
M. Lazzarato, “From Capital-Labor to Capital-Life,,” Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 4 (2004) 187-208.
Natasha van dar Swan, “Making Sense of Financialization,” Socio-Economic Review, 12 (2014) 99-129.
Manuel Aalbers, “The Financialization of Home and the Mortgage Market Crisis,” Competition and Change, 12:2 (June 2008) 148–166
Manuel Aalbers, “Corporate Financialization,” in The International Enyclopedia of Geography (Wiley, 2015)
Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American Economy,” Socio-Economic Review, 3 (2005) 173-208.
Peter Gowan, “Crisis in the Heartland,” New Left Review, 55 (2009).
Milford Bateman, “How Lending to the Poor began, Grew and Almost Destroyed a Generation in India,” Development and Change XLIII (November 2012) 1385-1402.
Ayten Davutoglu, “Two Different Poverty Reduction Approaches: Neoliberal Market Based Microfinance versus Social Rights Defender Basic Income.” International Journal of Social Inquiry, 6:1 (2013) 39-47.
Week 15. May 18
Non-Governmental Organizations/ Audits, Enumeration and Management
Required:
A) NGO’s
Julia Elyachar, “Mappings of Power. The State, NGO’s; and International Organizations in the Informal Economy of Cairo, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 25:3 (2003) 571-605.
Ole Sending and Iver Neuman, “Governance to Governmentality: Analyzing NGO’s, State and Power,” International Studies Quarterly, 50 (2006) 651-672.
Recommended:
Benjamin Junge, “NGO’s as Shadow Pseudo-publics: Grassroots Community Leaders’ Perceptions of Change and Continuity in Porto Alegre, Brazil,” American Anthropologist, 39:2 (2012) 407-424.
M. Schuller, “Gluing Globalization: NGO’s as Intermediaries in Haiti, PoLAR: Political, Legal and Anthropology Review, 32 (2009) 84-104.
William Fisher, “Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 26 (1997) 439-464.
Nicola Banks and David Hume, “The Role of NGO’s and Civil Society in Development and Poverty Reduction” (Brooks World Poverty Institute, The University of Manchester, June 2012)
B) Audits
Required:
Andrea Mennicken, “From Inspection to Auditing: Audit and Markets as Linked Ecologies,” Accounting, Organization and Society, 35:3 (April 2010) 334-359.
Peter Gibbon and Lasse Folke Henrisksen, “A Standard Fit for Neoliberalism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 54:2 (2012) 275-307.
Recommened
N. Kopnis, “Audit Cultures: Neoliberal governmentality, socialist legacy or technologies of governing,” American Ethnologist, 35:2 (2008) 275-289
Christian Vannier, “Audit Culture and Grassroots Participation in Rural Hatian Development,” PoLAR, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 33:2 (2010) 282-305.
Chris Lorenz, “If You’re So Smart, Why Are You Under Surveillance? Universities, Neoliberalism and New Public Management,” Critical Inquiry, 38 (Spring 2012) 599-629.