Authoritarian Neoliberalism, the Occupy Movements, and IPE

In the absence of any kind of hegemonic aura, neoliberal practices have proved increasingly unable to garner the consent, or even the reluctant acquiescence, necessary for more ‘normal’ modes of governance. Of particular importance in the post-2007 crisis has been the growing frequency with which constitutional and legal changes, in the name of economic ‘necessity’, are seeking to reshape the purpose of the state and associated institutions. This attempted reconfiguration is three-fold: (1) the more immediate appeal to material circumstances as a reason for the state being unable, despite ‘the best will in the world’, to reverse processes such as greater socioeconomic inequality and dislocation;(2) the deeper and longer-term recalibration of what kind of activity is feasible and appropriate for ‘non-market’ institutions to engage in, diminishing expectations in the process; and (3) the reconceptualisation of the state as increasingly non-democratic through its subordination to constitutional and legal rules that are ‘necessary’ for prosperity to be achieved.