The death of neoliberalism? UK responses to the pandemic

Exposing the Crimes of the Neoliberal State in the Governance of COVID-19

“…As Glover and Maani (2021) make clear, we should not be deceived by the Government's introduction of furlough schemes, the provision of additional funds for the NHS during the pandemic, and other initiatives State Crime 11.2 2022 that, on the surface, seem to point to the end of the neoliberal state and to a revival of the welfare state in the UK. Though the argument cannot be fully elaborated here, it has been shown quite convincingly that the Government's approach to the pandemic has relied heavily on privatization and outsourcing, has built on the neoliberal defunding and fragmentary restructuring of public health and has, ultimately, accelerated the neoliberalization of health, care, and social services in the UK (Abbasi 2020;Blackburn 2020;Davies 2020;Geoghegan 2020;Pollock, Clements and Harding-Edgar 2020;Duncan 2021). When searching for incontrovertible evidence of governmental neglect and negligence during the pandemic in England, one would have no choice but to look back at proposals to implement herd immunity plans.…”

“…Although the pandemic has triggered discussions about the "end of neoliberalism", the "death of neoliberalism", the "twilight of neoliberalism", "postneoliberalism", and so on (Saad-Filho 2020; Wilson 2020; Davies and Gane 2021; Evans 2021), the truth is that global public health during the pandemic remains trapped within the horizon of neoliberal governmentality and it would be inaccurate to claim that COVID-19 "killed neoliberalism" (Briggs et al 2020;Primrose, Chang and Loeppky 2020;Duncan 2021;Šumonja 2021). One of the guiding assumptions of the article is that a key reason why we have so far failed to fully exploit the opportunity provided by the pandemic to bury neoliberalism once and Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/scj/ for all-to expose its inappropriateness as ruling ideology of a globalized 21st century-relates to our inability to verbally and conceptually articulate and demonstrate the connections between public health failures, neoliberal governance, and state criminality.…”

Integrating Social, Political and Commercial Determinants of Health Frameworks to Advance Public Health in the twenty-first Century

“…38 Now, some scholars suggest that the neoliberal order is ending, challenged on the right by world events, the rise of authoritarianism, and a revitalized nationalism and on the left by Latin American, European, health, and other social movements and growing suspicions of the corporate regime. 23,37,39,40 Public health observers debate whether the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened or weakened neoliberalism, 41 making future rounds of austerity, deregulation, and privatization more or less likely.…”

Imagining Crises of Neoliberalism: Covid-19 Pandemic and (Im)Possibilities of Change in Turkey’s Labour Regime

“…In fact, the most perverse legacy of the global crisis has been a further entrenchment of neoliberal rationalities and disciplines. (p. 265) Departing from a similar vantage point, Duncan (2022) comparatively discusses the politics of the UK administration during the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic era to reveal how even the state-oriented welfare politics in both of these moments have paved the way for the restructuring of neoliberal hegemony in the country.…”