Making and Sustaining Neoliberalism: Between the Utopia of the Political Right and the Murkiness of Marketization

Neoliberalism has in some senses evolved into a sub-discipline of its own. A series of academic texts have emerged looking beyond the fetishizing of market relations and emergent political dominance to locate neoliberalism in a historical context. Some of the discussions locate pivotal moments of change such as the 1980s and the emergence of the New Right; others look back to trace the dominance of market relations, institutionally visible for some time beyond the writing of key figures such as Friedrich Hayek. This review essay focuses on two texts – Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018) and Nathalie Lévy et al ., The Anglo-American Model of Neoliberalism of the 1980s (2022) – both of which demonstrate the importance of historical analysis and sensitivity. Slobodian considers how neoliberal thought became central to state institutions and an international order long before the periods we normally scan historically as social and political observers. Lévy et al . focus on the construction and dissemination of neoliberalism in various national contexts nearly half a century ago and the attempts to ensure its dominance since then.