When the financial crisis came to a head in September 2008 there were a number of commentators suggesting that this might spell the end of neoliberalism. Both Jurgen Habermas and Joseph Stiglitz, to name only the most prominent voices, expressed the hope that the spectacular meltdown of investment banks and other financial institutions would finally discredit the notion of self-regulating and efficient (financial) markets, and thus what they took to be the neoliberal formula par excellence (Habermas, 2008; Stiglitz, 2008). Yet, several crises later the future of neoliberalism remains unclear. Some depict it as a teetering zombie bereft of any real life but still capable of spreading the ills its detractors hold it responsible for, simply because there is no alternative socio-economic vision of society that could claim to be a viable competitor (Peck, 2010). Along similar lines and expressing a widely shared bewilderment, Colin Crouch has referred to the 'strange non-death of neoliberalism' (Crouch, 2011). Others have introduced the vague notion of 'postneoliberalism' to denote a caesura at the end of a neoliberal era in the wake of the financial crisis (Peck et al., 2010). The neo-Keynesian intermezzos of economic stimulus packages passed in the United States and Europe notwithstanding there is in fact very little evidence that would signal a wholesale departure from neoliberal politics broadly understood (Peck et al., 2012). So what does the future hold for neoliberalism in Europe? Could it really be the case that the string of crises viewed by many as crises of neoliberalism (Dumenil and Levy, 2011) have left it still miraculously unscathed? Adapted from the source document.
The classic dialectic between Realist and Liberal theories of international politics, as expressed by Robert O. Keohane, ed., in Neorealism and Its Critics and Richard Rosecrance The Rise of the Trading State, can be transcended. Neither paradigm singularly explains international behavior: Realism is the dominant approach, but liberal theories of transnationalism and interdependence help to illuminate how national interests are learned and changed. Keohane and fellow critics argue that Neorealism—articulated definitively in Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics (1979)—elegantly systematizes Realism, but concentrates on international system structure at the expense of system process. Focused tightly on the concept of bipolarity, Waltz's theory tends toward stasis; the unit (state) level unproductively becomes an analytical "dumping ground." As a Neoliberal counterpoint, Rosecrance's argument does not go far enough. In the tradition of commercial liberalism, he argues that an open trading system offers states maneuverability through economic growth rather than through military conquest. He tempers his argument with Realist considerations of prudence, but fails to clarify Realist-Liberal links in his theory, or to explore fully the connections between power and non-power incentives influencing states' behavior. A synthesis of Neorealism and Neoliberalism is warranted: a systemic theory using the former to analyze at the level of structure, the latter more often at the level of process.
This article was commissioned by the French newspaper Le Monde. The newspaper was one of several sponsors of an International Conference on Global Regulation, held at the University of Sussex on May 29-31, 2003, where we presented a plenary paper. As part of its sponsorship, Le Monde agreed to publish two articles reflecting the spirit of the conference. The first of these articles, written by four of the conference organizers, was published prior to the conference. After the conference, the organizers asked the two of us to submit a second, short article highlighting the gist of our presentation. This article is enclosed below. The paper was sent by the organizers to Le Monde's Editor in Chief, Serge Marti. Many phone calls followed. In each call, Mr. Marti promised to publish the paper promptly. He never did.
Mehrere Einzelbeiträge befassen sich mit der Definition und Entwicklung des Begriffs Neoliberalismus und seinen sozialen und ökonomischen Folgen in Lateinamerika, der globalen Finanzkrise als Ergebnis ungehindert fließender Kapitalströme sowie mit den notwendigen staatlichen Eingriffen in die Marktmechanismen im öffentlichen Interesse. (HWWA/DÜI)