The World Turned Upside Down? Neo-Liberalism, Socioeconomic Rights, and Hegemony

Abstract

This article draws upon a Neo-Gramscian analysis of World Order to critically assess the relationship between neo-liberal globalisation and socioeconomic rights. It argues that, notwithstanding the well-documented discursive tensions that appear to exist between neo-liberalism and socioeconomic rights, the latter have been re-conceptualised in a manner that is congruent with the hegemonic framework of the former in a number of international institutional settings. This has been achieved in part through three discursive framing devises which I term socioeconomic rights as aspirations, socioeconomic rights as compensation and socioeconomic rights as market outcomes. I conclude by arguing that, despite such appropriation, there are still fruitful possibilities for counter-hegemonic articulations of socioeconomic rights to contest neo-liberal globalisation.

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