Neoliberal restructuring was imposed illegitimately and shielded from future democratic reversal.
Evidence
These mandated selling off several hundred state-run enterprises … Many of these orders were in violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions concerning war, occupation, and international relations, which mandate that an occupying power must guard, rather than sell off the assets of the occupied country. But if illegal under international law, the orders could be implemented by a sovereign Iraqi government. To that end, an interim government was appointed by the United States in late 2003 and was pressed to ratify the orders when it was pronounced “sovereign” in 2004. And lest future elected governments not be so pliable, one order declares that no elected Iraqi government will have the power to alter them. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 275
Categorization
- SEED: Article angle: how occupation powers codify irreversible economic orders to bind future democracies — the anti-democratic core of austerity made explicit.
- XREF: connects to: Neoliberals exploit emergency exceptions to bypass democratic accountability. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 980; Neoliberal deregulation erodes democracy as politics abdicates to market pressure — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 81; Neoliberal economic rationality is extinguishing the domains through which democracy materializes. (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- The neoliberal state hollowed out parties to escape mass democracy’s brake on capital
#expands(0.85) - Neoliberalism seeks a strong state that thwarts democracy, not a weak one
#expands(0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 155 - Neoliberal deregulation erodes democracy as politics abdicates to market pressure
#expands(0.82) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 81 - Neoliberal market discipline was adopted to pacify unruly democratic publics
#expands(0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 122 - Neoliberal economic rationality is extinguishing the domains through which democracy materializes.
#corroborates(0.80) - Neoliberalism reframed democracy and unions as enemies of market truth.
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 123 - Neoliberalism suppresses both liberal and radical-democratic traditions.
#expands(0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 13 - Neoliberal reforms can proceed without an authoritarian political system
#qualifies(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1542 - Neoliberalism differs from traditional conservatism in ways that shield it from accountability
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2313