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This book examines how neoliberalism is constituted from multiple, diverse elements; how these elements are brought together and made to cohere; and the challenges, contestations, and consequences of such. Informed by assemblage thinking, the collection builds on research that emphasizes the forms of experimentation, adaptation, and mutation through which neoliberalism is enacted and rendered workable across different spaces. Contributors provide original case studies on topics such as democratic administration, carbon markets, the sharing economy, behavioral economics, disease management, free trade, and youth volunteering. They interrogate the forms of expertise through which neoliberalism is rendered knowable; the diverse socio-technical practices that make neoliberalism governable; and the practices, effects, and tensions involved in the assembling of neoliberal subjects.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Assembling Neoliberalism.- 2. Neoliberalism and Rule by Experts.- 3. Assuming Everything Except Responsibility: Can We Blame Economists for Neoliberalism?.- 4. Assembling Climate Expertise: Carbon Markets, Neoliberalism and Science.- 5. The Politics of Expertise: Neoliberalism, Governance, and the Practice of Politics.- 6. Assembling Citizenship in Austere Times.- 7. (Re)Assembling Neoliberal Logics in the Service of Climate Justice: Fuzziness and Perverse Consequences in the Fossil Fuel Divestment Assemblage.- 8. The Mouse that Died: Stabilizing Economic Practices in Free Trade Space.- 9. Mapping Neoliberalism: Animal Health and the Spatial Practices of Disease Management.- 10. Mapping Happiness, Managing Urban Emotions.- 11. Sharing Subjects and Legality: Ambiguities in Moving Beyond Neoliberalism.- 12. "Doing Good": Affect, Neoliberalism, and Responsibilization Among Volunteers in China and the United States.- 13. The Resilient Subject.- 14. Economics, Experiments, Evidence: Poor Behavior and the Development of Market Subjects.- 15. Conclusion: Awkward Assemblages.
About the author
Vaughan Higgins is Associate Professor of Sociology at Charles Sturt University, Australia. His research encompasses the sociology of science and technology, and the sociology of agriculture and food. He is co-editor of Calculating the Social: Standards and the Reconfiguration of Governing with Wendy Larner.
Wendy Larner is Provost at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research sits in the interdisciplinary fields of globalization, governance, and gender. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Academy of Social Sciences, UK.
Summary
This book examines how neoliberalism is constituted from multiple, diverse elements; how these elements are brought together and made to cohere; and the challenges, contestations, and consequences of such. Informed by assemblage thinking, the collection builds on research that emphasizes the forms of experimentation, adaptation, and mutation through which neoliberalism is enacted and rendered workable across different spaces. Contributors provide original case studies on topics such as democratic administration, carbon markets, the sharing economy, behavioral economics, disease management, free trade, and youth volunteering. They interrogate the forms of expertise through which neoliberalism is rendered knowable; the diverse socio-technical practices that make neoliberalism governable; and the practices, effects, and tensions involved in the assembling of neoliberal subjects.
