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"Acknowledgements" -- "Contents" -- "Notes on Contributors" -- "List of Figures" -- "List of Maps" -- "Chapter 1: Introduction: Assembling Neoliberalism" -- "Assemblage Thinking and Neoliberalism" -- "Composition and Holding Together of Heterogeneous Elements" -- "Exteriority of Relations" -- "Re-thinking Agency and Power" -- "Outline of Chapters" -- "Expertise" -- "Practices" -- "Subjects" -- "Conclusion" -- "References" -- "Part I: Expertise" -- "Chapter 2: Neoliberalism and Rule by Experts" -- "Introduction" -- "Liberalism and the Age of Critical Governmental Reason" -- "Ostrom's "Field of Adversity": The Theory of Bureaucratic Administration" -- "Polycentricity: The Theory of Democratic Administration" -- "Neoliberal Political Economy" -- ""The Art of Associating Together"" -- "Conclusion: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Expertise" -- "Notes" -- "References" -- "Chapter 3: Assuming Everything, Except Responsibility: On Blaming Economists for Neoliberalism" -- "Introduction" -- "Neoliberal Economists?" -- "The Objects of Economics" -- "Economists and the Technocracy" -- "Conclusion" -- "Notes" -- "References" -- "Chapter 4: Assembling Climate Expertise: Carbon Markets, Neoliberalism and Science" -- "Introduction" -- "Assembling Markets Under Neoliberalism" -- "Assembling Carbon Markets" -- "Carbon Markets in Practice: Expanding Their Reach" -- "Crises and Their Response: Re-assembling Carbon Markets" -- "Conclusion" -- "Notes" -- "References" -- "Chapter 5: The Politics of Expertise: Neoliberalism, Governance and the Practice of Politics" -- "Introduction" -- "Aligning: Making and Remaking Political Projects" -- "Constituting and Contesting "Expertise"" -- "Assemblage in Question" -- "Conclusion: Revisiting "Politics"" -- "References" -- "Part II: Practices

This article draws on the concept of "performance" to argue for greater recognition of preexisting practices in the configuration of users. Through an Australian case study of a computer-based dairy decision-support system introduced via a two-day workshop to participating farmers, the article examines the assembling of imputed farmer users in the design of the software. It then explores how the designer and trainers attempt, through the decision-support system, to mobilize their network and align the imputed user with farmers' preexisting performances. The case study highlights that attempts to make workable on-farm the "new" performances of users inscribed in the software are highly contingent on farmers' preexisting knowledge practices. These "old" performances problematize the designer's and trainers' version of imputed users and contribute to partial translation of the decision-support system. A focus on performance is argued to provide a useful starting point in mapping the effects of preexisting knowledge practices on attempts to enroll users in technosocial programs.

This article argues that the failure of policies and programmes to achieve their desired effects is a constitutive part of projects of regulation, and is evident particularly in attempts to govern conduct 'at a distance'. Drawing upon concepts from the Foucaultian-inspired literature on governmentality, a Federal programme in Australia - the Rural Adjustment Scheme (RAS) - is examined and attention given to how its administration at a sub-national (State) level called into question, or 'problematized', the effectiveness of the programme from the outset. Using public documents and interviews by the author with 16 public servants, the article explores the rationalities and technologies through which these problematizations of governing were assembled. It focuses particularly on how the administrative 'freedom' of State authorities assumed political prominence as both a problem andas a necessary part of responding effectively to the diverse needs of clients/farmers.

In the last thirty‐five years, the economic viability of farmers both in Australia and internationally has assumed increasing political prominence with governments seeking to restructure agricultural industries. With reference to Australia, it has been argued increasingly by politicians, economists and farm organizations that some farmers have little prospect of survival, and require government assistance to exit the industry in the claimed interests of improved national productivity. However, viability has not always been governed in this way. In fact, the categorization of farmers on the basis of their capacity to earn an 'adequate' income emerged only in the late‐1960s. Through an examination of the emergence, from 1967 to 1971, of 'low‐income' farms as a national problem, this paper shows how 'problems' of restructuring are constituted discursively as objects of knowledge. Applying a Foucauldian‐inspired genealogy of government, I reconstruct the authorities and forms of knowledge through which a low‐income problem was constituted and assembled in a knowable form. Of particular significance in this paper is how economic expertise assumed prominence as key authorities in constituting previous collectivist forms of assistance as irrational, and in linking the future viability of Australian agriculture to the theories and practices of agricultural economists.

In the last 15 years, the term "restructuring" has been used by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explain the economic & social changes experienced within Australia & other Western nations. While these analyses have been productive in accounting for restructuring in terms of the historical structural relations between fractions of capital & the state, this paper argues for an understanding of the more subtle ways through which programs of economic reform are assembled at the state level. Using the Foucaldian-inspired literature on governmentality, the paper draws attention -- through a historical analysis of the emergence in Australian political discourse of formal managerial skills -- to the specific rationalities & technologies of governing that enable particular forms of "restructuring" to be constituted & assembled into a programmatic form. The emergence of farm business management, as a means of improving agricultural productivity, is conceptualized as embedded within a series of problematizations of governing. These problematizations sought to constitute the national economy as in a state of crisis, & previous forms of governing as failing to enhance the capacities of farmers to compete internationally. On this basis, the managerial capacities of farmers merged as the proper sites through which to pursue "reform.". 63 References. Adapted from the source document.

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.

Examining the increasingly powerful role of standards in the governing of economic, political and social life, this book draws upon governmentality and actor network theory to explore how standards and standardizing projects are articulated and rendered workable in practice, and the objects, subjects and forms of identity to which this gives rise

Standards are an increasingly powerful mechanism for the governing of economic, political and social life. Yet there has been little sustained attention by social scientists to how standards and standardizing projects are articulated and rendered workable in practice. This innovative book is the first of its kind to examine the dynamics of standardization work, and the objects, subjects and forms of governing to which this gives rise. Drawing upon post-realist approaches of governmentality and actor network theory, contributors provide detailed case studies which highlight how standards configure, and are configured through, local practices; the complexity of standardizing processes which contribute to harmonization at the same time as creating distinction and difference; and, the new forms of identity, subjectivity and social organization that emerge through standardizing work.

Introduction : globalization and agricultural governance / Vaughan Higgins and Geoffrey Lawrence -- Globalization and global governance / Emelie Peine and Philip McMichael -- Reshaping the state : global/local networks of association and the governing of agricultural production / Lynda Cheshire and Geoffrey Lawrence -- Rural development and agri-food governing in Europe : tracing the development of alternatives / Terry Marsden and Roberta Sonnino -- Reshaping the agrifood system : the role of standards, standard makers, and third-party certifiers / Carmen Bain, B. James Deaton and Lawrence Busch -- Disciplining the organic commodity / Hugh Campbell and Annie Stuart -- Governing conflicts over sustainability : agricultural biotechnology in Europe / Les Levidow -- Governing agriculture through the managerial capacities of farmers : the role of calculation / Vaughan Higgins -- Sustainability and agri-environmental governance / Jacqui Dibden and Chris Cocklin -- Governing consumption : mobilizing 'the consumer' within genetically modified and organic food networks / Stewart Lockie and Nell Salem -- Animals and ambivalence : governing farm animal welfare in the European food sector / Mara Miele, Jonathon Murdoch and Emma Roe -- Expertise and the calculability of agri-food risks / Richard Le Heron.

AbstractMeso‐scale actors – such as farm advisors and other extension agents – are increasingly recognised as playing a critical role in managing farmer uncertainty associated with smart farming implementation. However, there has been limited research to date on how these actors navigate smart farming implementation within specific industries or commodity sectors. This article applies theoretical insights from the technological frames literature to investigate how meso‐scale actors in the Australian rice industry frame smart farming technology implementation, and the ways in which relationships between frames variously afford and/or constrain industry sovereignty over implementation of technological change. Through analysis of our data, we reveal a complex relationship between participants' technological frames involving frame incongruence, frame ambivalence and frame switching. We argue that while development of a more integrated approach to enhancing the digital capacities of meso‐scale actors advocated in the literature provides a way of addressing frame incongruence, more flexible strategies may be needed to address frame ambivalence and switching. Furthermore, we contend that those frame relationships supporting industry sovereignty – namely frame ambivalence and switching – may not always be conducive to the promotion of digital agency among meso‐scale actors, and could in fact impose limits on smart farming implementation.