Quo vadis neoliberalism? The remaking of global capitalist governance after the Washington Consensus

The Washington Consensus, through which neoliberal global capitalist governance gained hegemony over the third world, entered a crisis in the late 1990s. Triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and by contestations of neoliberal governance from global civil society, two remakings of global capitalist governance can be identified: A ‘post-Washington consensus’ whose relation to neoliberalism is complex; and a ‘new development economics’ that advocates Keynesian principles. Irrespective of the trajectory of this emergent phase of re-regulation, particularly after the 2008 global finance crisis, these remakings can be conceptualized as supplements reinforcing an imaginary of capitalism as the solution to, rather than progenitor of, uneven development. Through discourses of capitalist development as a sequential trajectory to be followed by all countries, as flattening the world to enable catch-up by backward countries, and as incorporating socio-spatial difference via its commodification, this socio-spatial imaginary functions to legitimate expertise located in the first world, and global capitalist governance, irrespective of serial policy failures.     

Neo-liberalising corporate social responsibility: A political economy of corporate citizenship

In this paper we situate the rise of corporate social responsibility in the context of a re-casting of the boundaries between corporate- and state-centred regulation. We argue that this process can be understood in a theoretical framework of “rolling-out” neoliberalisation. We focus firstly upon an emergent CSR consultancy industry within the UK context, demonstrating that there is now a network of organisations dedicated to making profit out of socially-responsible corporate behaviour. These organisations have helped to re-define the nature and meaning of the private sector. Then we interpret global framework agreements on corporate behaviour (such as the UN Global Compact, the Equator Principles, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative) as examples of how neoliberalism is created in and through new “in-between” spaces that set the rules of political action. Subsequently, we note that some NGOs have recently recognised the limits on campaigning for more socially responsible corporate activity, and re-connect these concerns with longer-term debates on corporate voluntarism versus state-centred regulation. We conclude that demonstrating how hegemony is constructed in and through neo-liberalising corporate social responsibility remains to be fully explored, but argue that it is beneficial to consider the diversity of political projects involved in this ongoing process.     

The accidental enterprise: Ethical consumption as commerce

Ethical consumption is routinely promoted as a form of individualised responsibility taking whereby citizen-consumers consciously engage in morally/politically directed purchasing decisions. This has been heavily critiqued as a neoliberal reduction of civic engagement to market choice. It has also been contested by way of a shift to problematizing the consumer as moral agent; where attention is drawn instead to networks of agential entities - advocacy organisations, certifying bodies, marketing discourses, retail spaces, packages, household routines, and so on - that configure consumption alternatives as practice and performance. In reflecting on these concerns, this paper qualitatively explores the enterprising (rather than consumer enactment) of the ethical. Drawing on a multifaceted, three-year study of alternative consumption in Australia, the paper attends to the framing of ethical enterprise through business language, to the often ambivalent deployment of various commercial models and marketing strategies in the doing of ethical business, and to how a contestatory commerce is being imagined, especially in terms of its relations to a politics of social and economic change and to a commercial mainstream. Informed by work on markets as pragmatically assembled and on the economy as multiple, emphasis is placed throughout this article on ethical enterprise as a space of political ambiguity and as a gesture towards an alternative commerce that displaces an understanding of ethical consumption as resting on the actions of the virtuous consumer.     

Environmentality unbound: Multiple governmentalities in environmental politics

This article reviews an emerging body of research applying a “multiple governmentalities” perspective derived from Michel Foucault to the study of environmental politics. Previous application of the popular governmentality concept to understand such politics had largely overlooked the multiple forms of governmentality, described in Foucault’s later work, that may intersect in a given context. This paper outlines the evolution of Foucault’s discussion of governmentality and its implications for the study of environmental politics. It then reviews recent research concerning environmental politics employing a multiple governmentalities perspective. It finishes by distilling overarching patterns from this literature and suggesting new directions for future research to explore.     

Poverty and citizenship: Sociological perspectives on water services and public-private participation

This article focuses on the arguments used to support private sector participation (PSP) in the provision of water and sanitation services (WSS) since the 1980s. It addresses the following questions: what was the historical evidence informing the claim that promoting PSP would be the best instrument for reducing water poverty? What are the principles that provided the foundation for this claim? And, what has been the empirical record of the resulting WSS policies? It argues that early neoliberal WSS policies since the 1980s were not intended to expand services to the poor. A pro-poor rhetoric was added to these policies since the 1990s, probably as a result of increasing citizen unrest in developing countries and the failure of privatized WSS projects in the Americas and Europe. However, the claim that PSP can provide the solution to public sector failure in extending coverage of essential WSS to the poor has little ground both in the theoretical literature and in the historical record. As could have been expected from the accumulated knowledge about the relationship between market-driven WSS and the poor, the recent experience with PSP projects has been disappointing. In practice these policies not only have failed to extend these essential services to the poor but have also contributed to deepening existing inequalities of power resulting in the weakening of state, local government, and civil society capacities to exercise democratic control over private water monopolies in most developing countries. Reversing this imbalance is one of the crucial challenges ahead in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. However, the article argues that the inertial forces set in motion by the neoliberal model of water policy based on market-centred governance of water and WSS remains the crucial obstacle for the achievement of the goals.     

The ideology behind the technology - Chilean microentrepreneurs and public ICT policies

Digital divides are differences in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) which tend to reflect the social and regional inequalities between and within countries. This paper presents a case study from Chile, which is among the leaders in Latin America both in levels of e-readiness and in social and regional inequality. The Chilean state’s ICT policies are situated within the “Third Way” approach of the centre-left government, reflecting the tensions between a pro-active and positive view of neoliberal globalisation, and state social programmes to support poorer sectors of society.The paper presents a multi-level analysis of two elements of Chilean ICT policy: Chilecompra, an online public e-procurement system aimed at creating transparent and competitive transactions in line with neoliberal economic theory, and Red Comunitaria, a network of Community Information Centres which offer free internet access and training to individuals, including microentrepreneurs. Interviews were conducted at the national, regional and local level. Findings were that the Community Information Centres (telecentros) had indeed furthered digital inclusion while in the meantime the shift to e-procurement had excluded many microentrepreneurs who had not registered with the system of Chilecompra. The larger of the local enterprises had registered but were having difficulties competing online with bigger companies located in the regional and national capitals.The paper argues that while both state policies see themselves as successes, the political objectives underlying the technology mirror the Chilean government’s struggle to simultaneously embrace neoliberal globalisation while working towards greater social and regional cohesion. At the local level there is evidence of the failure to reconcile the two approaches which may be indicative of a more general tension between these goals.     

Seeding nature, ceding culture: Redefining the boundaries of the marine commons through spatial management and GIS

The oceans are not only being transformed through privatization as management moves towards market mechanisms, the oceans are also being “zoned”, with zoning increasingly proposed as the ideal conduit for weighting different uses of the ocean. This is concomitant with a move towards ecosystem-based management that also partakes in a policy environment imbued with the commodification of nature, in which environmental services are ranked and valued according to neoliberal percepts. Crucial to these projects are the utilization of GIS technologies. This paper considers these zones of preservation and sites of conflict through an ethnographic case study of the scallop fisheries of New England, examining conflicts between harvesters, different projects to map the fishery, and ongoing efforts to reseed scallop beds. The paper explores how participants themselves articulate the changing practices of fishing and farming, redefining boundaries of nature and culture. While reseeding projects, for example, arguably participate in the market logic of neoliberalism, at the same time they may resist and redefine the terms, as communities see themselves sowing the seeds of their own sustainability and changing the terms of what counts, literally, as nature.     

Governmentality and security in the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

This article offers a critical theoretical exploration of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The article examines the background to PEPFAR and its reauthorization in Washington DC in 2008 through the conceptual lens of governmentality. Building on existing work, it interprets PEPFAR as a programme for securing the welfare of populations. It also qualifies and extends this work in the following ways. Rather than representing a break with the history of geopolitics, it argues that PEPFAR emerged out of accommodations between geopolitics and governmentality. This point is developed through two takes on geopolitics, first in terms of the projection of sovereign power, and second in terms of articulations between PEPFAR and geopolitical economies of global health. The article suggests, first, that the geopolitics of sovereign power shaped the timing, scale and form of PEPFAR, and second, that PEPFAR articulated with geopolitical economies of global health through its mobilization of US-based corporations, non-governmental and faith-based organizations. The article extends existing work by examining the role of critical mobilizations in shaping PEPFAR, both in relation to questions of political economy and the contentious politics of life. Reflecting on the politics of global health, it considers the prospects for using ideas of security and the international response to HIV/AIDS as stepping stones towards the development of broad-based health systems.     

Anti-poverty politics in Toronto and Mexico City

In recent years, governments at different scales in both North and South have been experimenting with alternative methods of alleviating poverty, and redesigning social welfare regimes. While these changes are not entirely congruent across regimes in North and South, there are interesting points of overlap and intersection. The article lays out three broad alternatives to “roll-back” neoliberalism: intrusive liberalism; inclusive liberalism, and a renewed version of social citizenship. It then lays out how these alternatives have played out in anti-poverty politics in Toronto and Mexico City, two sites where creative strategies contesting neoliberalism have been pursued. While both cities occupy a critical place within their respective political economies, they are not usually compared because of their very different positions in the North American division of labour. Yet, as we argue, they face similar challenges in the form of poverty reduction strategies at the national scale that are based on neoliberal principles that do little to meet the needs of their inhabitants. In response, both cities have provided a site for mobilising resources behind alternative anti-poverty policies, inspired by the principles of social citizenship.     

Environmental governance and the hybrid regime of Australian natural resource management

In this paper we explore hybridity in Australian natural resource governance, both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of neoliberalism. We develop an understanding of this governance regime as an assemblage of subjects, ethics, ends and techniques that constitute a hybrid of practices directed by three mentalities of government: neoliberalism, localism and ecocentrism. This three-way parentage engenders particularly complex internal dynamics - tensions and congruencies, grounds for contest and opportunities for collaboration - that shape and transform the regime. Our analysis clarifies the formative roles of the three logics and in so doing offers a new perspective of tripartite governance dynamics. We conclude by showing how the co-existing mentalities compete to establish NRM policy that is in accord with their respective ends and ethics, subjectify problems and other actors to fit with their own agendas, and attempt to secure primacy for those technologies congruent with their logics. At the same time, as mutually constitutive forces of the regime, they exhibit varying degrees of adaptivity as they co-opt or accommodate technologies favoured by their competitors.