Geography

Negotiating particularity in neoliberalism studies: Tracing development strategies across neoliberal urban governance projects

Document Type

Article

Abstract

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. © 2013 Antipode Foundation Ltd.

Publication Title

Antipode

Publication Date

2013

Volume

45

Issue

5

First Page

1277

Last Page

1297

ISSN

0066-4812

DOI

10.1111/anti.12018

Keywords

critical neoliberalism studies, entrepreneurial governance, megaevents, neoliberalization

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