The power of economic ideas – through, over and in – political time: the construction, conversion and crisis of the neoliberal order in the US and UK
Author(s)
Widmaier, Wesley
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
Metadata
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In recent years, scholarly concern for ‘great transformations’ has yielded to a stress on ‘gradual transitions'. In thiscontribution, I offer a discursive institutionalist model of the shifts in ideational power which drive order construction, consolidation and crisis. First, I argue that leaders exercise rhetorical power through ideas, employing communicative appeals to shape principled beliefs. Second, I argue that élites employ epistemic power over ideas to consolidate intellectual consensus. Finally, I posit that as structural power in ideas assumes a life of its own, this breeds overconfidence and crisis. Empirically, ...
View more >In recent years, scholarly concern for ‘great transformations’ has yielded to a stress on ‘gradual transitions'. In thiscontribution, I offer a discursive institutionalist model of the shifts in ideational power which drive order construction, consolidation and crisis. First, I argue that leaders exercise rhetorical power through ideas, employing communicative appeals to shape principled beliefs. Second, I argue that élites employ epistemic power over ideas to consolidate intellectual consensus. Finally, I posit that as structural power in ideas assumes a life of its own, this breeds overconfidence and crisis. Empirically, I then track the development of the neoliberal order over Reagan's and Thatcher's use of power through ideas in constructing principled restraints on the market power of labour, Clinton- and Blair-era efforts to concentrate power over ideas in central banks, and the structural power of New Keynesian ideas that obscured concentrations of financial power, culminating in the global financial crisis.
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View more >In recent years, scholarly concern for ‘great transformations’ has yielded to a stress on ‘gradual transitions'. In thiscontribution, I offer a discursive institutionalist model of the shifts in ideational power which drive order construction, consolidation and crisis. First, I argue that leaders exercise rhetorical power through ideas, employing communicative appeals to shape principled beliefs. Second, I argue that élites employ epistemic power over ideas to consolidate intellectual consensus. Finally, I posit that as structural power in ideas assumes a life of its own, this breeds overconfidence and crisis. Empirically, I then track the development of the neoliberal order over Reagan's and Thatcher's use of power through ideas in constructing principled restraints on the market power of labour, Clinton- and Blair-era efforts to concentrate power over ideas in central banks, and the structural power of New Keynesian ideas that obscured concentrations of financial power, culminating in the global financial crisis.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of European Public Policy
Volume
23
Issue
3
Subject
International Relations
Policy and Administration
Political Science