Neoliberalism(s) as a Guide to Post‐Wall Urban Change: Explanation Out of the Blue?

Abstract

Concerns have been raised that neoliberalism has become the favoured, yet uncritically applied lens used to approach and explain societal developments. This contribution assesses research on an area where this concern has been pronounced, namely the formerly centrally planned economies of Europe. Examining a sample of more than 200 articles published in twelve geography, area and urban studies journals over the period 2000–2014, findings suggest that while neoliberalism is not generally used as a blanket explanation for patterns of change following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it is occasionally afforded explanatory power. Moreover, when it does assume this role it is rarely defined and more rarely still validated empirically. Thus, in about one tenth of the sampled literature, the importance of neoliberalism is asserted rather than shown.

Geography of research on post-socialist cities: a bibliometric approach

“…Now, 25-30 years after this great change, the cities of the former socialist countries have become, in many respects, similar to those of Western Europe. For this reason, the legitimacy of using the term 'post-socialist' is increasingly discussed in relation to cities in Central and Eastern Europe and in the countries of the former Soviet Union (see Stenning & Hörschelmann 2008;Hirt, Ferenčuhová & Tuvikene 2016;Gentile & Sjöberg 2020). Despite this, even those researchers who are aware of the debate often simplify their research as post-socialist cities, treating this term sometimes as a recognisable label.…”

Profiling ‘Red Bologna’: Between neoliberalisation tendencies and municipal socialist legacy

“…Numerous, in fact, are the cities that urban researchers have scrutinised by mobilising what MacLeod, Raco and Ward (2003) call the "hegemony of entrepreneurial neoliberalism", which has become a consolidated lens through which to interpret the dramatic market-led transformations that have affected urban governance, economy and institutions in the Post-Fordist era. This perspective is deeply rooted in an Anglo-American urban geography tradition, where the debate on the "neoliberal city" (Hackworth, 2007) has been a dominant trend in post-Wall urban scholarship, resulting in at least 209 articles about neoliberalism published in major journals between 2000 and 2014 (Gentile and Sjöberg, 2020).…”