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Negotiating Particularity in Neoliberalism Studies: Tracing Development Strategies Across Neoliberal Urban Governance Projects
Author(s) -
Lauermann John,
Davidson Mark
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12018
Subject(s) - neoliberalism (international relations) , capitalism , ideology , corporate governance , political economy , sociology , retrenchment , politics , political science , economic system , economics , public administration , law , finance
A reading of critical perspectives on neoliberalism would suggest that it is dead but dominant, a revanchist zombie that appears paradoxically ubiquitous despite its inherent idiosyncrasy. We argue that neoliberalism's paradoxical death, dominance, and retrenchment can be interpreted by analyzing the dialectic of universalizing processes and particular forms within capitalism. Neoliberal projects draw political import from systemic, universalizing tendencies in capitalism, particularly those ideological processes by which contradictions and crises come to be discursively, institutionally, and politically conceptualized within the same paradigm from which they emerged. Building on well developed research frameworks in neoliberalism studies, we propose a set of analytical tools to interpret links between particular projects and homogenizing practices. We illustrate this with a case study of urban “megaevents” (eg Olympic Games or football World Cup), demonstrating how ideological commitments to event‐based development strategies allow both the homogenizing imposition of entrepreneurial urban policy, and localized innovations in urban governance.