Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

Anchored in the principles of free-market economics, neoliberalism emerged in the 1990s as the world's most dominant economic paradigm. It has been associated with various political leaders from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Bill Clinton, to Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and Manmohan Singh. Neoliberalism even penetrated deeply into communist China's powerful economic system. However, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the related European Sovereign Debt Crisis triggered a decade of economic volatility and insecurity that boosted the fortunes of the 1 per cent while saddling the 99 per cent with stagnant wages and precarious work. As a result of this Great Recession, neoliberalism fortunes have waned considerably. This downward trend further accelerated with the recent surge of national populism around the world that brought to power outspoken critics of neoliberalism like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, and Narendra Modi. Is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? And what are the major types of neoliberalism, and how did they evolve over the decades?

Responding to these crucial questions, this Very Short introduction explores the considerable variations of neoliberalism around the world, and discusses the origins, evolution, and core ideas of neoliberalism. This new edition brings the story of neoliberalism up to date, and asks whether new versions of neoliberalism might succeed in drowning out the rising tide of national populism and its nostalgic longing for a return to territorial sovereignty and national greatness.

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Manfred B. Steger is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa and Global Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. He has served as an academic consultant on globalization for the US State Department. He is the author or editor of twenty-eight books on globalization, social and political theory, and nonviolence, including: The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror (2008), What Is Global Studies? Theory & Practice (2017), and Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times (with Paul James, 2019).

Ravi K. Roy is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Quality and Innovation Leadership Incubator (QuIL) in the College of Aerospace and Technology at Southern Utah University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the W. Edwards Deming Institute© (2016- ) and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University (2020-2021). He has published books with Routledge Press, Sage Press, and Oxford University Press