There is a world-wide debate at the moment about the appropriate role for the state in modern societies in the light of the world financial crisis. This text provides a comprehensive analysis and critique of neo-liberal or economic liberal ideas on this issue.

This book explores the relationship between neo-liberalism, state power and global governance, exploring national differences in the exercise of state power in a variety of industrialized and developing economies. Among the strengths of this volume are its detailed global scope, its range of case studies in diverse policy areas, its analysis and critique of neo-liberalism, in theory and practice, and its impact upon state power and global governance.

An interdisciplinary assessment of neo-liberalism, this volume examines the usefulness of neo-liberal theory and prescription for tackling problems in agriculture, industry, education and health, considering, amongst other topics, its impact on the rural poor and women.

The book examines the rise of the amalgam of economic and political ideas we know as neo-liberalism and how these became the defining orthodoxy of our times. It investigates the inexorable global spread of market economies and how neo-liberal agendas are accommodated or hijacked in collisions with authoritarian states and populist oligarchies.

This book focuses on the theme of counter-surveillance in art through a multi-faceted engagement with the highly controversial Norwegian play Ways of Seeing. Denounced by the prime minister and subject to a police investigation, the play gained notoriety when it featured footage showing the homes of the country's financial and political elite as part of its scenography. The book provides a thorough consideration of the work's reception context before elucidating its relation to the politics of neoliberalism. What is foregrounded in this analysis are, first, the use of an aesthetics of sousveillance to visualize the material infrastructure of racism and right-wing populism, second, the tangled interrelations of art and law, third, questions of censorship and artistic freedom, and fourth, the promotion of an alternative mode of political governance - grounded in feminism and ecological awareness - through the example of the Rojava experiment. Asbjørn Skarsvåg Grønstad is a film scholar and professor of Visual Culture in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway. He is founding director of the Nomadikon Center for Visual Culture and the author/editor of eleven books, the most recent of which are the co-edited collection Gestures of Seeing in Film, Video and Drawing (2016), Film and the Ethical Imagination (2016), Invisibility in Visual and Material Culture (co-edited with Øyvind Vågnes, 2019), and Rethinking Art and Visual Culture: The Poetics of Opacity (2020). Grønstad is also a founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal Ekphrasis: Nordic Journal of Visual Culture.

A rich set of feminist perspectives on the varied and often contradictory nature of state practices, structures, and ideologies Growing socio-economic inequality and exclusion are defining features of the twenty-first century. While debates on globalization, free trade, and economic development have been linked to the paradigm of “neo-liberalism,” it does not explain all the forms of social change that have been unfolding in comparative contexts. Feminists Rethink the Neoliberal State provides a timely intervention into discussions about the boundaries, practices, and nature of the post-liberalization state, suggesting that an understanding of economic policies, the corresponding rise of socio-economic inequality, and the possibilities for change requires an in-depth reconceptualization. Drawing on original field research both globally and within the United States, this volume brings together a rich set of perspectives on the varied and often contradictory nature of state practices, structures and ideologies in the post-liberalization era. The essays develop an interdisciplinary approach that treats an understanding of historically-specific forms of inequality—such as gender, race, caste, sexuality and class—as integral to, rather than as after-effects of, the policies and ideologies associated with the “neoliberal project.” The volume also tackles central questions on the restructuring of the state, the state’s power operations, the relationship between capital and the state, and its interactions with the institutions and organizational forms of civil society in the post-liberalization era. As such, Feminists Rethink the Neoliberal State examines both what is distinctive about this post-liberalization state and what must be contextualized as long-standing features of modern state power. A truly international and interdisciplinary volume, Feminists Rethink the Neoliberal State deepens our understanding of how policies of economic liberalization shape and produce various forms of inequality.

Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia: Neoliberalizing Spaces in Developmental States examines the influence of neo-liberal ideologies on urban and regional policies and practices in several Asian Pacific nations. Represents one of the few studies of neoliberal changes in East Asia, one of the most important topics in social science research over the past two decades Considers the Asian perspective by focusing on readings from Asian experts Pays special attention to the ‘spatial' dimension of the East Asian neoliberalization Examines the influence of neo-liberal ideologies on urban and regional policies and practices in several Asian Pacific nations Explores the evolving relationship between the two political economies

The aim of the book is two-fold. First of all it is to provide a fair, complete and analytical account of the Neo-liberal conception of the role and function of the state in modern society. The second aim is to provide a critical assessment of some of the central elements of this conception. The book will look at the emphasis of Neo-liberals on procedural and rule governed approaches to the role of the state rather than outcome or end state views of the role of government and to consider how this conception of politics relates to issues such as the rule of law, freedom, justice, rights, the relationship to the market economy, to civil society and to look at the role of government in relation to the provision of welfare and public sector services more generally. It builds up the Neo-liberal case in respect of these aspects of modern society by drawing upon the works of central Neo-liberal thinkers such as Hayek, Mises, Menger, as well as thinkers such as Oakeshott, Nozick and Rotbard who are not directly Neo-liberals but whose works have been important for the development of central Neo-liberal themes. The second part of the book provides what might be regarded as an immanent critique of the Neo-liberal case built up in the first part of the study. It takes Neo-liberal ideas very seriously and shows how incoherences arise within and between those ideas such that a plausible form of Neo-liberalism as opposed to Libertarianism on the one hand and Social Democracy on the other is very difficult to state. The theme of this book is very germane given the considerable debate which is now taking place in the context of the world financial crisis about the appropriate role for the state.

This volume of cutting-edge research brings together internationally recognized experts in the field of protest studies and contentious politics to analyse the causes and trajectories of violence as a protest tactic. Cross-national comparisons from North America, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Thailand, and elsewhere contribute to the volume's theoretical elaboration, while several case studies add depth to the discussion. This title is of key importance to scholars across the social sciences, including sociology, political science, geography and criminology and is a significant contribution to the study of rioting and violent protest in the contemporary neoliberal states.