Neoliberalism: From New Liberal Philosophy to Anti-Liberal Slogan

TLDR

Neoliberalism has become an academic catchphrase, yet its meaning and proper usage have elicited little scholarly debate compared to other concepts such as democracy. The study aims to explain neoliberalism’s problematic usage by tracing its historical evolution and proposes ways to restore its substantive meaning as a “new liberalism.” The authors conduct a content analysis of 148 journal articles (1990–2004) and extend Gallie’s framework for essentially contested concepts to analyze neoliberalism’s usage. They find that neoliberalism evolved from a positive label of moderate liberal renovation to a negative term linked to radical reforms in Pinochet’s Chile.

Abstract

In recent years, neoliberalism has become an academic catchphrase. Yet, in contrast to other prominent social science concepts such as democracy, the meaning and proper usage of neoliberalism curiously have elicited little scholarly debate. Based on a content analysis of 148 journal articles published from 1990 to 2004, we document three potentially problematic aspects of neoliberalism’s use: the term is often undefined; it is employed unevenly across ideological divides; and it is used to characterize an excessively broad variety of phenomena. To explain these characteristics, we trace the genesis and evolution of the term neoliberalism throughout several decades of political economy debates. We show that neoliberalism has undergone a striking transformation, from a positive label coined by the German Freiberg School to denote a moderate renovation of classical liberalism, to a normatively negative term associated with radical economic reforms in Pinochet’s Chile. We then present an extension of W. B. Gallie’s framework for analyzing essentially contested concepts to explain why the meaning of neoliberalism is so rarely debated, in contrast to other normatively and politically charged social science terms. We conclude by proposing several ways that the term can regain substantive meaning as a “new liberalism” and be transformed into a more useful analytic tool.