Open AccessSakari Hänninen, Kirsi-Marja Lehtelä and Paula Saikkonen (eds.), The Relational Nordic Welfare State: Between Utopia and Ideology (Cheltenham/Northampton: E. Elgar, 2019)
Author(s) -
Ingerid S. Straume
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
nordicum-mediterraneum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1670-6242
DOI - 10.33112/nm.17.1.12
Subject(s) - ideology , utopia , neoliberalism (international relations) , welfare state , nobody , state (computer science) , sociology , welfare , political science , political economy , law , politics , algorithm , computer science , operating system
Neoliberalism is a peculiar phenomenon: Nobody, to my knowledge, identifies as being a neoliberal, yet several publications have recently demonstrated how four decades of neoliberal reforms have transformed Western democracies in surprisingly uniform ways. In this sense, neoliberalism is an ideology without proponents, or, to use vocabulary from The Relational Welfare State: Between Utopia and Ideology, a utopia that has successfully manifested itself by replacing or transforming other socio-historical regimes.