Repository logo
 

The Rise and Fall (?) of America's Neoliberal Order

cam.issuedOnline2018-11-02
dc.contributor.authorGerstle, Gary
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-08T06:31:37Z
dc.date.available2018-09-08T06:31:37Z
dc.date.issued2018-12
dc.description.abstractThis paper argues that the last eighty years of American politics can be understood in terms of the rise and fall of two political orders. The first political order grew out of the New Deal, dominating political life from the 1930s to the 1970s. The history of this order (the New Deal Order) is now well known. The other order, best understood as ‘neoliberal’ in its politics, emerged from the economic and political crises of the 1970s. This paper is one of the first to elucidate the political relationships, ideological character and moral perspective that were central to this neoliberal order's rise and triumph. The paper's narrative unfolds in three acts: the first chronicles the 1980s rise of Ronald Reagan and the laissez-faire Republican party he forced into being; the second shows how the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s accelerated the globalization of capitalism and elevated neoliberalism's prestige; and the third reveals how a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, facilitated his party's capitulation to neoliberal imperatives. Political orders encourage such capitulation, the paper argues, by universalizing their own ideological principles and making alternative ideologies seem marginal and unworkable. A coda shows how the Great Recession of 2008 fractured America's neoliberal order, diminishing its authority and creating a space in which different kinds of politics, including the right-wing populism of Donald Trump and the left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders, could flourish.
dc.identifier.doi10.17863/CAM.27194
dc.identifier.eissn1474-0648
dc.identifier.issn1474-0648
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/279824
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherCambridge University Press
dc.publisher.urlhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0080440118000129
dc.subject4303 Historical Studies
dc.subject43 History, Heritage and Archaeology
dc.titleThe Rise and Fall (?) of America's Neoliberal Order
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2018-01-24
prism.endingPage264
prism.publicationDate2018
prism.publicationNameTransactions of the Royal Historical Society
prism.startingPage241
prism.volume28
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate2018-12
rioxxterms.licenseref.urihttp://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
rioxxterms.versionAM
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1017/S0080440118000129

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
Gerstle Neoliberalism essay TRHS 1 June 18.docx
Size:
71.31 KB
Format:
Microsoft Word XML
Description:
Accepted version
Licence
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
DepositLicenceAgreement.pdf
Size:
417.78 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format