Foucault’s account of neoliberalism missed its transnational and postnational dimensions

Evidence

There are many more features of neoliberalism that Foucault did not and could not anticipate, including its grinding of gears between the national, postnational, and global; the importance of transnational institutions to governance and regulation; and the socialization of risk accompanying the privatization of gain. Foucault’s neoliberalism is notably statecentric, not governed by transnational or global institutions, and construes the relations between state, economy, and civil society in national terms. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 144

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Prior scholarship on neoliberalism neglected the question of scale — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 68; The unknowability of the world economy drove neoliberal federalist reform — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 77; Foucault’s biopolitics resembles but misleads analysis of everyday neoliberalism — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 262 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Foucault’s political coordinates cannot capture neoliberalism’s effects on democracy #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 146
• Conflating globalized capitalism with neoliberalism collapses distinct hegemonic constellations #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 25