springer springer - the violence of neoliberalism
TRANSCRIPT
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 1/21
"
The Violence of Neoliberalism
Simon SpringerDepartment of Geography, University of Victoria
*Forthcoming in the Handbook of Neoliberalism *
Abstract As austerity measures intensify in the wake of the most recent global financial crisis, it isbecoming ever more clear that neoliberalization exhibits a distinct relational connection with violence. This is not an admonishment of the protests that continue to swell, but rather arecognition that these movements are in fact pushing back against the violent measures thathave frustrated and demoralized everyday existence under neoliberalism. There is nowconsiderable room for scepticism with regard to the Ôrising tides lifts all boatsÕ discourse thatis perpetuated by proponents of neoliberal ideology, as the free market has categoricallyfailed at producing a harmonious global village. Promises of utopia are confronted with the
stark dystopian realities that exist in a growing number of countries where neoliberalizationhas not resulted in greater peace and prosperity, but in a profound and unmistakableencounter with violence. This paper questions how neoliberalizing processes often comessuffused with processes of othering that result in conflict, arguing that neoliberalism itselfmight be productively understood as a particular form of violence.
KeywordsConflict, Dystopia, Geography, Neoliberalism, Othering, Violence
Introduction
The ascent of neoliberalism can be understood as a particular form of anxiety, a disquiet
born in the wake of the Second World War when the atrocities of Nazi Germany, Fascist
Italy, and the Soviet Union fostered a belief that government intervention trampled personal
freedoms and thereby unleashed indescribable slaughter (Mirowski and Plehwe 2008). There
is some truth to be found in this concern, but the response that followed has exhibited its
own violent tendencies. The Mont Pelerin Society, the originary neoliberal think-tank,
responded by resurrecting classical liberalismÕs three basic tenets. First, a concentrated focus
on the individual, who was viewed as the most qualified to communicate his or her desires,
whereby society should be reoriented towards removing obstacles that hinder this goal.
Second, free markets were considered the most proficient means for advancing self-reliance,
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 2/21
#
whereby individuals could pursue their needs through the mechanism of price. Finally, a
faith in a non-interventionist state that would emphasize and maintain competitive markets
and guarantee individual rights shaped around a property regime (Hackworth 2007; Plehwe
and Walpen 2006). From the geopolitical context of the warÕs aftermath, the origins of
neoliberalism as a political ideology can be understood as reactionary to violence. In short,
neoliberals conceived that violence could be curbed by a return to Enlightenment thinking
and its explicit basis in advancing the merits of individualism.
This historical context is ironic insofar as structural adjustment, fiscal austerity, and
free trade, the basic principles of neoliberalism, are now Ôaugmented by the direct use of
military forceÕ (Roberts et al. 2003), where the Ôinvisible handÕ of the global free market is
increasingly clenched into the Ôvisible fistÕ of the United States military. The relationship
between capital accumulation and war is of course longstanding (Harvey 1985), and the
peaceful division that early neoliberals pursued for their economic agenda demonstrated a
certain naivety. While not all wars are decidedly capitalist, it is difficult to envisage conditions
wherein an economic ideology like neoliberalism could not come attendant to violence
insofar as it seeks a global domain, supports universal assumptions, and suppresses
heterogeneity as individuals are remade according to the normative image of Ôneoliberal
proper personhoodÕ (Kingfisher 2007). Either the lessons of colonialism were entirely
overlooked by the Mont Pelerin Society, or they uncritically embraced its narrative appeal to
the supposed higher purpose of the Ôwhite manÕs burdenÕ. Just as colonialism paved a road to
hell with ostensibly good intentions, the neoliberal imagination of an eventual harmonious
global village now demonstrates much the same. Embedded within such promises of utopia
are the dystopian realities that exist in a number of countries, where neoliberalization has not
produced greater peace, but a profound and often ruinous encounter with violence.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 3/21
$
The historical record indicates that the years under neoliberalism have been
characterized by recurrent crises and deepening divisions between and within the worldÕs
nations on ethno-religious grounds. Although in some instances poverty has arguably been
alleviated or at least not gotten any worse under neoliberalism, in many more contexts
poverty remains painfully acute, while inequality has undeniably increased both within and
between cities, states, and regions (Wade 2003; Harvey 2005). There is nascent literature that
is quickly gathering momentum, which attempts to make these connections between
neoliberalism and violence more explicit (Auyero 2000; Borras and Ross 2007; Chatterjee
2009; Coleman 2007; Collier 2008; Goldstein 2005; Marchand 2004). From this growing
concern comes increasing recognition for the idea that the imposition of neoliberal austerity
measures may actually promote conditions of increased impoverishment that subsequently
provide multiple opportunities for violent conflict (Bourdieu 1998; Bourgois 2001; Farmer
2004; Uvin 2003; Wacquant 2009). Within my own work I have attempted to demonstrate an
urgent need to build linkages between the violence occurring in various sites undergoing
neoliberalization, and to identify threads of commonality within these diverse spaces so that
an emancipatory agenda of transnational scope may potentially begin to emerge (Springer
2011b, 2015).
Although acknowledgement for the violence of neoliberalism continues to grow, it is
important to recognize how simplistic and problematic it is to assume uniformity across the
various constellations of violent geographies that are occurring in neoliberalizing contexts.
Such an approach serves to reinforce the authority of neoliberal discourse by continuing to
circulate the idea that neoliberalism as a particular model of statecraft is unavoidable, a
criticism Gibson-Graham (1996) make more generally with regard to capitalism. Likewise, to
treat the material expression of violence only through its directly observable manifestation is
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 4/21
%
a reductionist appraisal. This view disregards the complexity of the endless entanglements of
social relations, and further ignores the future possibilities of violence (Nordstrom 2004).
When we bear witness to violence, what we are seeing is not a ÔthingÕ, but a moment with a
past, present, and future that is determined by its elaborate relations with other moments of
social process (Springer 2011c). The material ÔactÕ of violence itself is merely a confluence in
the flows of oppressive social relations, and one that is persistently marked with absolutist
accounts of space and time, when instead violence should be recognized as being temporally
dispersed through a whole series of Òtroubling geographiesÓ (Gregory 2006). Nonetheless,
understanding the resonances of violence within the now orthodox political economic model
of neoliberalism Ð however disparate, protean, and variegated Ð is of critical importance to
social justice. Only through a conceptualization of fluidity and process can we begin to
recognize how violence and neoliberalism might actually converge.
I begin this chapter by identifying how processes of othering coincide and become a
central component of neoliberal logic by providing it with the discursive tools to realize its
heterogeneous ideals. In the following section I describe how attention to the relationality of
space and time allow us to recognize neoliberalism and violence as mutually reinforcing
moments of social process where it becomes very difficult to disentangle these two
phenomena. I then turn my attention towards the exclusions of neoliberalism, where I
consider how the exceptional violence of this process comes to form the rule. Here I identify
neoliberalism having produced a state of exception through its particular version of
sovereign authority and dire consequences this results in for the downtrodden and
dispossessed. I then conclude on hopeful note by insisting that collectively we are powerful
actors who have the radical potential to resist, transform, and ultimately undo neoliberalism.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 5/21
&
Neoliberal Othering
Although mainstream examinations of conflict theory have a tendency to focus on ÔlocalÕ
origins by invoking the idea of ÔbackwardÕ cultural practices as the most suitable explanations
for violence (see Huntington 1996; Kaplan 2000), this reading problematically overlooks the
influence of ideology and economics. The geographical imagination of violence vis-ˆ-vis
neoliberalism treats violence as an externality, a wrong-headed vision that engenders
Orientalist ideas. Such othering discourses insidiously posit ÔlocalÕ cultures as being wholly
responsible for any ensuing bloodshed following neoliberalization, thus ignoring the
mutability and relationality of the ÔglobalÕ political economy of violence. Here we can look
for guidance to the influence of Said (2003), who has made significant contributions to a
broader interest in how geographical representations and practices produced notions of ÔusÕ
and ÔthemÕ, or ÔSelfÕ and ÔOtherÕ. In a contemporary sense, othering licenses further
neoliberal reforms, as neoliberalization is positioned as a ÔcivilizingÕ enterprise in the face of
any purported ÔsavageryÕ (Springer 2009a). Neoliberalism is rarely interrogated and is
typically either openly endorsed (see Fukuyama 1992) or tacitly accepted (see Sen 1999) as
both the sine qua non of human development and the cure-all for violence. Such othering
places neoliberalism Ôunder erasureÕ, where we are encouraged to approach neoliberal ideas
without a critical lens.
Popular geopolitics has repeatedly imagined ÔAfricanÕ, ÔAsianÕ and ÔIslamicÕ cultures
as being somehow ingrained with a supposedly ÔnaturalÕ inclination towards violence, a
tendency that has intensified in the context of the ongoing Ôwar on terrorÕ. The public
performance of such ideas feeds into particular geostrategic aims, thus allowing them to
gather momentum and develop a certain form of ÔcommonsenseÕ validity. The imaginative
geographies of such Orientalism are creations that meld difference and distance through a
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 6/21
'
sequence of spatializations that not only assign particular people as ÔOtherÕ, but construct
ÔourÕ space of the familiar as distinct and separate from ÔtheirÕ unfamiliar space that lies
beyond (Gregory 2004; Said 2003). This is the exact discourse that colonialism rallied to
erect its authority in the past, and in the current conjuncture, Orientalism can be considered
as neoliberalismÕs latitude insofar as othering enables a powerful discursive space for
promoting the ideals of the free market. Such a connection between neoliberalism and
Orientalism may appear counter-intuitive when neoliberalism is accepted at face value. After
all, the neoliberal doctrine envisages itself as the champion of a liberal internationalism
centered around the vision of a single human race peacefully united by a common code of
conduct featuring deregulated markets, free trade, shared legal norms and states that feature
civic liberties, electoral processes, and representative institutions (Gowen 2001).
Nonetheless, an appreciation for neoliberalizationÕs capacity to promote inequality,
exacerbate poverty, license authoritarianism, and advance a litany of other social ills is
growing (Bourdieu 1998; DumŽnil and LŽvy 2011; Giroux 2004; Goldberg 2009; MacEwan
1999; Springer 2008). Such recognition hints at the numerous ÔerasuresÕ neoliberal ideologues
have attempted to engage through neoliberalismÕs discursive concealment.
Klein (2007) has persuasively argued that natural disasters have been used as
opportunities to push through unpopular neoliberal reforms on peoples and societies too
disoriented to protect their interests. In their absence, othering lays the necessary foundation
for manufactured ÔshocksÕ in procuring openings for neoliberalism. Similar to the originary
state-level neoliberal trial run in Chile (Challies and Murray 2008), the current sequence of
imperialism-cum-neoliberalization in the Middle East is exemplary of American geopolitical
intervention and a variety of militarism rooted in the Orientalist idea of folding distance into
difference. Would the mere presence of ISIS, as problematic as this organization is, have
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 7/21
(
been enough to galvanize AmericaÕs authorization of air strikes had their fragmented
activities and threats occurred on Canadian soil rather than in Iraq and Syria? We can only
speculate, but given the wholesale devastation that ensues, without a significant dose of
Orientalism the idea of launching missiles and dropping bombs on a country in all
probability would not get off the ground and a different strategy would be devised to ensure
minimal civilian casualties. Similarly, it was Ôunknown/farawayÕ Santiago and not
Ôfamiliar/nearbyÕ Ottawa that played host to WashingtonÕs subversions in the lead up to the
Ôother 9/11Õ in 1973, when the neoliberal experiment was first realized with the installation
of Pinochet.
Attention to how particular geographies, including imaginative ones, are Ôproduced
by multiple, often unnoticed, space-making and space-changing processesÕ is of critical
importance (Sparke 2005). Sparke (2007) argues that such appreciation is itself an ethical
commitment to consider the exclusions Ð which can be read in the double sense of Ôunder
erasureÕ and ÔotheringÕ Ð in the production of any given geographical truth claims. The
geography of neoliberalism involves recognizing its variegated expressions (Peck and Tickell
2002), imperialist impulses (Escobar 2004; Hart 2006), and authoritarian responses
(Canterbury 2005; Springer 2009c), all of which dispel the theoretical tall-tales of a smooth-
space, flat-earth where neoliberalism rolls-out across the globe without friction or resistance.
To deal with the inconsistencies between these material interpretations and a doctrine
allegedly premised on peace, othering practices are employed to indemnify ÔaberrantÕ,
ÔviolentÕ, and ÔlocalÕ cultures in explaining away any failings of neoliberalism, thereby leaving
its class project unscathed (Springer 2009a). Orientalism is used to legitimize the
doublespeak neoliberal proponents invoke in the global distribution of violence (Sparke
2007), to code the violence of anti-neoliberal resistance, and to geographically allocate and
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 8/21
)
place blame for violence by asserting that violence sits in particular, ÔOrientalÕ places
(Springer 2011c). The responsibility of critical theory under this Ônew imperialismÕ (Harvey
2003) is thus to illuminate such erasures so that the othering of neoliberalism is laid bare and
therein may be refused.
Momentous Violence
In my attempt to link neoliberalism to violence one might be inclined to ask if the former
actually causes the latter and how that could be proven. My response is that the question
itself is largely irrelevant. The empirical record reveals a noticeable upswing in inequality
under neoliberalism (Wade 2003), which Harvey (2005) regards as neoliberalismÕs principal
substantive achievement. Inequality alone is about measuring disparity, however qualified,
while the link between inequality and violence is typically considered as an appraisal of the
ÔvalidityÕ of a causal relationship, where the link may or may not be understood to take on
multiple dimensions including temporally, spatiality, economics, politics, culture and so
forth. The point is that violence and inequality are mutually constitutive. Inequality
precipitates violence, and violence gives rise to further inequalities. Accordingly, if we wish
to attenuate the devastating and disaffecting effects of either, we need to rid ourselves of a
calculative model and instead consider violence and inequality as an integral system or
particular moment . ÒThinking in terms of momentsÓ, Hartsock (2006: 176) argues, can allow
scholars Òto take account of discontinuities and incommensurabilities without losing sight of
the presence of a social system within which these features are embeddedÓ. Although the
enduring phenomenon of violence is fragmented by variations, strains and aberrations as
part of its processual nature, within the current moment of neoliberalism, violence is all too
often a reflection of the chaotic landscapes of globalized capitalism.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 9/21
*
At different moments capitalism creates particular kinds of agents who become
capable of certain kinds of violence dependent upon both their distinctive geohistorical
milieu and their situation within its hierarchy. It is in this distinction of moments that we can
come to understand the correlations between violence and neoliberalism. By exploring the
particular histories and distinctive geographies that define individual neoliberalizations,
scholars can begin to shed light on the phantasmagoria of violence that is projected within
neoliberalismÕs wider rationality of power. In other words, it is important to recognize and
start working through how the moment of neoliberalism and the moment of violence converge.
The intention here is not to produce a Cartesian map, wherein the same interpretation is
replicated in each and every context of neoliberalization. Neoliberalism should not be read as
an all-powerful and self-reproducing logic. Lending such an infallible appearance serves to
empower the idea that neoliberalism is beyond reproach. It is imperative to contest the
neoliberalism-as-monolithism argument for failing to recognize space and time as open and
always becoming (Springer 2011a, 2014). In focusing solely on an externally constructed
neoliberalism we neglect the local geographies of existing political economic circumstances
and institutional frameworks, wherein the vagaries of societal influences and individual
agency play a key role in the circulation and (re)production of neoliberalism. In short, to
focus exclusively on external forces is to risk producing over-generalized accounts of a
singular and omnipresent neoliberalism.
While acknowledging the problematics of a monolithic reading of neoliberalism it is
also critically important to acknowledge that an intensive focus on internal phenomena is
also limiting. Without attention to the relational connections of neoliberalism across space
we cannot adequately addresses the essential features and important connections of
neoliberalism as a global project (Peck and Tickell 2002). This Ôlarger conversationÕ of
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 10/21
"+
neoliberalism is considered important in relating similar constellations of experiences across
various locations as a potential basis for emancipation (Brand and Wissen 2005;
Featherstone 2005; Routledge 2003; Springer 2008; Willis et al. 2008). Retaining the
abstraction of a ÔglobalÕ neoliberalism allows phenomena like inequality and poverty, which
are experienced across multiple sites, to find a point of similarity, a moment . In contrast, a
refusal of the global scope of neoliberalism hinders attempts at developing and maintaining
solidarity beyond the micro-politics of the ÔlocalÕ. For that reason, conceptualizing
neoliberalism requires awareness for the complex connections between local and extralocal
forces functioning within the global political economy (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Peck
2001). To understand the violence of neoliberalism then, we must be willing to sift through
and account for the traction of violence in the contexts of its particular hybridized and
modified instances of neoliberalization, while at the same time preserving the notion of
neoliberalism as a Òradical theoretical sloganÓ (Peck 2004: 403). The latter can be employed
as a reference point in opposing violence and bringing together distinct struggles against the
controlling, abusive, and punishing structures of capitalism.
It was only over the course of a succession of setbacks, interruptions, and false starts
that neoliberalism as a marginal utopian idea began to emerge as an established doctrine that
has congealed as a diverse yet related series of neoliberalizations (Peck 2010; England and
Ward 2007). Part of the ÔsuccessÕ of neoliberalism as the common language of global
discourse is that it is based on a series of nostrums that once employed foretell that free
market forces will lead to a thriving future, where all of the worldÕs peoples will be unified in
an equitable and harmonious Ôglobal villageÕ. Put differently, the neoliberal apostles are false
prophets of emancipation, proselytizing peace as they wage war. So while I want to argue
that understanding neoliberal violence requires attention to particular specificities that are
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 11/21
""
conditional and context dependent, the violence of neoliberalism also has a relational
character that extends across multiple sites, having been entwined within particular
discourses and (re)productions of space (Lefebvre 1991). Acknowledgement of this dialectic
moment brings a broader significance to neoliberalismÕs encounter with violence, where
contextually specific patterns of violence that are associated with unique social events,
political circumstances, cultural processes, and spatial transformations can also be read more
broadly across a array of sites undertaking neoliberalizing processes all across the globe.
While the inflections, cadences, and pulses of neoliberalism will always have some measure
of idiosyncrasy in different contexts, from moment to moment the funeral march remains
the same. Concealed beneath the allure of sirens, neoliberalism is actually a cacophony of
violence and conflict, where there is profound dissonance between what it promises and
what it ultimately delivers.
The Neoliberal State of Exception
The continuing exclusions of neoliberalism should motivate us to get involved and galvanize
our collective strength to stand in opposition. But beyond the desire for compassion, an
affinity that never takes for granted our shared humanity (Day 2005), lurks the threat of
complacency, the shadow of indifference, and the menace of detachment among those of us
who have not yet been subjected to our homes being forcibly taken by armed bandits known
as police, to our childrenÕs curiosity languishing because a basic education is an expense we
cannot shoulder, or to our spouses dying in our arms having been denied adequate health
care. The examples are not mere abstractions. Each of these scenarios has been revealed to
me with disturbing regularity during the course of my ongoing research in Cambodia
(Springer 2009b, 2010, 2011a, 2013, 2015). What those of us still on the winning side of
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 12/21
"#
neoliberalism do not anticipate or account for Ð and let there be no mistake that this is a
system that unquestionably produces winners and losers Ð is that in this aban donment of our
ÒOthersÓ, we produce a state of exception (Ong 2006). The relation of the ban is nothing if
not ambiguous, and to abandon someone is not simply to ignore or forsake them. As
Agamben (1998: 72) explains, ÒWhat has been banned is delivered over to its own
separateness and, at the same time, consigned to the mercy of the one who abandons it Ð at
once excluded and included, removed and at the same time captured.Ó In other words, to
ban is to create a state of exception , wherein the Òexception does not subtract itself from the
rule; rather, the rule, suspending itself, gives rise to the exception and, maintaining itself in
relation to the exception, first constitutes itself as a ruleÓ (Agamben 1998: 14). Consequently,
it is through the construction of a new neoliberal normative frame Ð wherein malice and
malevolence become the rule Ð that the exceptional violence of neoliberalism is transformed
into exemplary violence.
Exceptional violence always runs the risk of becoming exemplary, or so routinized,
quotidian, ordinary, and banal that we no longer feel an emotional response to its appearance
precisely because it is the norm. We may recognize it as violence, but we remain indifferent.
Exemplary violence is most effective when it is no longer recognized as violence at all, a
destructive form of unconsciousness that Bourdieu (2001) referred to as Ôsymbolic violenceÕ.
It is in this mundanity of the everyday that we find meaning in ArendtÕs (1963) Òbanality of
evilÓ. HistoryÕs profoundest moments of iniquity are not performed by extremists or
psychopaths, but by ordinary people Ð potentially you and me Ð as we come to accept the
premises of the existing order. The banality of evil is thus an erasure that deprives us of our
ability to recognize violence as a moment that is at once both exceptional and exemplary. As
Agamben (1998, 14) explains, an exception Òdoes not limit itself to distinguishing what is
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 13/21
"$
inside from what is outside but instead traces a threshold (the state of exception) between
the two, on the basis of which outside and inside, the normal situation and chaos, enter into
those complex topological relationsÓ. The exception and the example accordingly always
exist in a dialectic relationship, and it is for this reason that the ongoing abandonment of the
ÔOtherÕ under neoliberalism comes to define the sovereign authority of neoliberalism as a
political economic order.
As our political capacities knowingly and unknowingly embrace the social
disarticulation and anomie of neoliberalismÕs dystopia of individualism, the violence of this
process deepens. Within neoliberalismÕs imaginative geographies of an affluent global village,
what is not spoken is the desire for a certain and particular homogeneity, an impulse to
remake the ÔOtherÕ in ÔourÕ image, whereby the space of Ôthe peculiarÕ, Ôthe exoticÕ, Ôthe
bizarreÕ is continually (re)produced through the relation of the ban. But this is a relation that
Agamben (1998: 21) knows well to be one where Òoutside and inside, become
indistinguishableÓ, and thus, as with all fantasies and desires, at the heart of neoliberalismÕs
chimera of strength and confidence lurks a profound sense of anxiety (Gregory 1995). This
is not a disquiet without consequence, but one that licenses particular violent geographies in
ensuring that the Òtableau of queernessÓ (Said 2003) never disrupts its visions of global
sovereignty. The ominous specter of the banality of evil is signaled by the juxtaposition
between a panacean fantasy of a Ônew world orderÕ and the sheer magnitude of violence that
permeates our contemporary world. This is a routinized, clichŽd, hackneyed, and mundane
force, an evil whose potential resides within each and every one of us, and whose hostility is
nurtured, accumulated, and consumed through the othering of neoliberalism.
Fantasy and reality collide under neoliberalization, and our involvement in this
process allows for the normative entrenchment of violence against the marginalized, the
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 14/21
"%
dispossessed, the poor, the downtrodden, the homeless, the unemployed, the disaffected,
and the ÔOtherÕ. Yet this necropolitics of violence is not the conclusion of neoliberalismÕs
violent fantasy; rather, it is its genesis. The violence of neoliberalism is continuing to unravel
the world. In this grave realization, and in echoing Marx, critical scholarship must not merely
seek to interpret the world; it must seek to change it by aligning its theory and practice on all
occasions and in all instances to the service of social justice. By seeking to shine a light on
the variety of ways in which the processes of neoliberalization are saturated with both
exceptional and exemplary violence, we open our geographical imaginations to the possibility
of (re)producing space in ways that make possible a transformative and emancipatory
politics. This moment of ÔEmpireÕ (Hardt and Negri 2000) demands such courage of our
scholarship. As members of the assemblage we call humanity, we each have a moral
obligation to stand up and speak out as an act of solidarity with those whom the violence of
neoliberalism has targeted, and those who have been silenced by the complacency of a stifled
collective imagination wherein neoliberalism is considered an inexorable force.
Conclusion
The rolling-back of the state is a rationale of neoliberal governance, not an informed choice
of the autonomous agents that comprise the nation. Thus, resistance to neoliberalism often
provokes a more despotic outlook as states move to ensure that reforms are pushed through,
particularly if the changes are rapid and a legitimizing discourse for neoliberalization has not
already become widely circulated. This is why effective subjectification to neoliberal ideals
and the production of ÔotheringÕ discourses become a hallmark of neoliberalization. Yet
complete acquiescence to neoliberalism is improbable for two reasons. First, every single
member of a given society is never going to completely accept of agree with the dominant
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 15/21
"&
discourses. Thus, we so often find that those marginalized by neoliberal reforms are actively
engaged in continuous struggles to have their voices heard, which is unfortunately just as
frequently met with state violence in response. Second, social processes have an essential
temporality, meaning that they continue to unfold. While notions of temporal stasis and
spatial uniformity pervade popular accounts of a fully integrated Ôglobal villageÕ (see
Friedman 1999), these ideas are fundamentally reliant upon a problematic assignment of
monolithism and inevitability to neoliberalism, as though space-time has only one possible
trajectory (Massey 2005). In the popular imagination, there is little acknowledgment of the
discursive work that goes into the (re)production and distribution of neoliberal ideas in a
diverse range of contexts (Plehwe and Walpen 2006). As the utopian discourse of
neoliberalism rubs up against empirical realities Ð such as heightened inequality and ongoing
poverty Ð citizens are more likely to express discontent with particular characteristics of
neoliberalization, most obviously the reduction of essential social provisions such as
healthcare and education. Resorting to violence accordingly becomes one of the few
disciplinary options available to governments transformed by neoliberalization as they
attempt to retain legitimacy, where ÔotheringÕ becomes a primary mechanism in the
articulation of power. In short, those who donÕt fit the mold of a proper neoliberal subject
are treated as enemies.
The rising tide against neoliberalism and the geographically dispersed protests that
signify and support such a movement necessarily occur in terrains that always exceed
neoliberalism (Hart 2008; Leitner et al. 2007). Consequently we can never attribute
neoliberalism to a direct calculable expression. Although the idea of a distinct singular form
of neoliberalism is prominent in the popular imagination, such a formulaic interpretation of
a pure neoliberalism is an untenable idea that has been altogether dismissed by geographers
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 16/21
"'
(Peck and Tickell 2002; Springer 2011a). Neoliberalism is a theoretical abstraction that rubs
up against geographical limits, and consequently its Ôactually existingÕ circumstances are never
paradigmatic. Yet it is nonetheless enormously important to recognize how the evolving
geographies of protest, resistance, and contestation can be interpreted as a shared sense of
betrayal with what can be broadly defined as Ôneoliberal policy goalsÕ. The implication of this
reading is a growing recognition for transnational solidarity as being inseparable from ÔlocalÕ
movements, which prompts a relational understanding of both resistance to, and the
violence of neoliberalism (Featherstone 2005; Springer 2011b; Wainwright and Kim 2008).
Some of the most noticeable outcomes of neoliberalization are increased class tensions,
intensified policing, increased surveillance, and heightened security measures, which
inevitably arise from strained relations. So while there are variegations and mutations to
account for in neoliberalismÕs travels, there is also a need to appreciate the similar deleterious
outcomes that all too frequently arise.
The relationship between neoliberalism and violence is directly related to the system
of rule that neoliberalism constructs, justifies, and defends in advancing its hegemonies of
ideology, of policy and program, of state form, of governmentality, and ultimately of
discourse (Springer 2012). Neoliberalism is a context in which the establishment,
maintenance, and extension of hierarchical orderings of social relations are re-created,
sustained, and intensified, where processes of ÔotheringÕ loom large. Accordingly,
neoliberalization should be regarded as integral to violence inasmuch as it generates social
divisions within and across space. Yet the world as we see it today where the violence of
neoliberalism proceeds with a careless lack of restraint is neither necessary nor inevitable. By
increasing our shared understanding for the cruelty that neoliberalism engenders we set in
motion a process of awakening from the allure of market logic, a process that shatters the
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 17/21
"(
influence of anomie and sounds a death knell for neoliberal ideas. As exceptional violence
comes to form the rule, people around the world are becoming more acutely aware that
something is not right, and consequently we are becoming more willing to stand up for our
communities, for ourselves, and for ÔOthersÕ. Every time we refuse to sit idle before would
be evictors speculating on land, have the courage to protest exclusion from democratic
process, strike against an exploitative employer who denies a fair wage, or resist being
framed as violent savages incapable of agency, the rhizomes of emancipation grow stronger.
There is a world to be won, and so long as we can come to recognize the reflection of
ÔOthersÕ within ourselves, we will prevail.
References
Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life . Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress.
Arendt, H. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil . New York: Viking.
Auyero, J. 2000. The hyper-shantytown: neo-liberal violence(s) in the Argentine slum Ehtnography 1: 93-116.
Borras, S. and Ross, E. 2007. Land rights, conflict, and violence amid neo-liberalglobalization. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 19: 1-4.
Bourdieu, P. 1998. Utopia of endless exploitation: the essence of neoliberalism. Le MondeDiplomatique , December: 1-5.
Bourdieu, P. 2001. Masculine Domination . Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bourgois, P. 2001. The power of violence in war and peace: post-Cold War lessons from ElSalvador. Ethnography 2: 5Ð34.
Brand, U. and Wissen, M. 2005. Neoliberal globalization and the internationalization ofprotest: European Perspective. Antipode 37 : 9-17.
Brenner, N. and Theodore, N. 2002. Cities and the geographies of Ôactually existingneoliberalismÕ. Antipode , 34: 349-379.
Canterbury, D. C. 2005. Neoliberal Democratization and New Authoritarianism . Burlington: Ashgate.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 18/21
")
Challies, E. and Murray, W. 2008. Towards post-neoliberalism? The comparative politico-economic transition of New Zealand and Chile. Asia Pacific Viewpoint , 49: 228-243.
Chatterjee, I. 2009 Social conflict and the neoliberal city: a case of HinduÐMuslim violence in
India Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34:143-160.
Coleman, L. 2007. The gendered violence of development: imaginative geographies ofexclusion in the imposition of neo-liberal capitalism. The British Journal of Politics andInternational Relations 9: 204-219.
Collier, C. 2008. Neoliberalism and violence against women: can retrenchment convergenceexplain the path of provincial anti-violence policy, 1985Ð2005? Canadian Journal of PoliticalScience 41: 19-42.
Day, R. 2005. Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements . London: Pluto.
DumŽnil, G. and LŽ vy, D. 2011. The Crisis of Neoliberalism . Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress.
England, K. and Ward, K. eds. 2007. Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples. Malden:Blackwell.
Escobar, A. 2004. Development, violence and the new imperial order. Development , 47: 15-21.
Farmer, P. 2004. An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Current Anthropology 45: 305Ð25.
Featherstone, D. 2005. Towards the relational construction of militant particularisms: or why
the geographies of past struggles matter for resistance to neoliberal globalization. Antipode , 37: 250- 271.
Friedman, T. 1999. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization . New York: Farrar,Strauss and Giroux.
Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man . New York: The Free Press.
Gibson-Graham, J. K. 1996. The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique ofPolitical Economy. Cambdirge: Blackwell.
Giroux, H. A. 2004. The Terror of Neoliberalism: Authoritarianism and the Eclipse of Democracy.Boulder: Paradigm.
Goldberg, D.T. 2009. The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism . Malden: Blackwell.
Goldstein, D. 2005. Flexible justice: neoliberal violence and Ôself-helpÕ security in BoliviaCritique of Anthropology 25: 389-411.
Gregory, D. 1995. Imaginative Geographies. Progress in Human Geography 19: 447-485.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 19/21
"*
Gregory, D. 2006. Introduction: troubling geographies. In Castree, N. and Gregory, D. eds.David Harvey: A Critical Reader . Malden: Blackwell, 1-25.
Gregory, D. 2004. The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq . Malden: Blackwell.
Hackworth, J. 2007. The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in Americanurbanism . Ithica: Cornell University Press
Hardt, M. and Negri, A. 2000. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hart, G. 2006. Denaturalizing dispossession: critical ethnography in the age of resurgentimperialism. Antipode , 38: 977-1004.
Hart, G. 2008. The provocations of neoliberalism: contesting the nation and liberation afterapartheid. Antipode , 40: 678-705.
Hartsock, N. 2006. Globalization and primitive accumulation: the contributions of DavidHarveyÕs dialectical Marxism. In Castree, N. and Gregory, D. eds. David Harvey: A CriticalReader. Malden: Blackwell, 167-190
Harvey, D. 1985. The geopolitics of capitalism, in Gregory, D. and Urry, J. eds, SocialRelations and Spatial Structures . London: Macmillan, 128-163.
Harvey, D. 2003. The New Imperialism . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huntington, S. P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order . New York:Simon & Schuster.
Kaplan, R. 2000. The Coming Anarchy . New York: Random House.
Kingfisher, C. 2007. Spatializing neoliberalism: articulations, recapitulations (a very few)alternatives, in England, K. and Ward, K. eds. Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples .Malden: Blackwell, 195-222.
Klein, N. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . Toronto: A.A. Knopf.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space . Oxford: Blackwell.
Leitner, H., Peck, J. and Sheppard, E. S. eds. 2007. Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers .New York: Guilford.
Marchand, M. 2004. Neo-Liberal Disciplining, Violence and Transnational Organizing: TheStruggle for WomenÕs Rights in Ciudad Ju‡rez. Development 47: 88-93.
Massey, D. 2005. For Space . London: Sage.
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 20/21
#+
Mirowski, P. and Plehwe, D. eds. 2009. The Road from Mont Pelerin: The Making of the NeoliberalThought Collective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Nordstrom, C. 2004. The tomorrow of violence. In Whitehead N. L. ed. Violence. Santa Fe:
School of American Research Press, 223-242.
Ong, A. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty . London: DukeUniversity Press
Peck, J. 2001. Neoliberalizing states: thin policies/hard outcomes. Progress in HumanGeography , 25: 445-455.
Peck, J. 2004. Geography and public policy: constructions of neoliberalism. Progress in HumanGeography , 28: 392-405.
Peck, J. 2010. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. 2002. Neoliberalizing space. Antipode , 34: 380-404.
Plehwe, D. and Walpen, B. 2006. Between network and complex organization: the making ofneoliberal knowledge and hegemony, in Plehwe, D., Walpen, B. and Neunhoffer, G. eds, Neoliberal Hegemony: A Global Critique . London: Routledge, 27-50
Roberts, S., Secor, A., and Sparke, M. 2003. Neoliberal geopolitics. Antipode , 35: 886-897.
Routledge, P. 2003. Anti-geopolitics, in Agnew, J., Mitchell, K., and Toal, G. eds. ACompanion to Political Geography. Oxford: Blackwell, 236-248.
Said, E. 2003. Orientalism , 25th Anniversary Edition. New York: Vintage Books.
Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom . Toronto: Random House.
Sparke, M. 2005. In the Space of Theory: Postfoundational Geographies of the Nation-state . Minnesota:University of Minnesota Press.
Sparke, M. 2007. Geopolitical fear, geoeconomic hope and the responsibilities of geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers , 97: 338-349.
Springer, S. 2008. The nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation: linking geographies ofpoverty, inequality, and violence. Geoforum , 39: 1520-1525.
Springer, S. 2009a. Culture of violence or violent Orientalism? Neoliberalisation andimagining the Ôsavage otherÕ in posttransitional Cambodia. Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers , 34: 305-319.
Springer, S. 2009b. The neoliberalization of security and violence in CambodiaÕs transition,in Peou, S. ed, Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collaborative Action . London:
8/10/2019 Springer Springer - The Violence of Neoliberalism
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/springer-springer-the-violence-of-neoliberalism 21/21
Routledge, 125-141.
Springer, S. 2009c. Renewed authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: undermining democracythrough neoliberal reform. Asia Pacific Viewpoint . 50: 271-276.
Springer, S. 2010. Cambodia's Neoliberal Order: Violence, Authoritarianism, and the Contestation ofPublic Space . London: Routledge.
Springer, S. 2011a. Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization. Environment and Planning A. 43: 2554-2570.
Springer, S. 2011b. Public space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radicaldemocracy, neoliberalism and violence. Antipode 43: 525-562.
Springer, S. 2011c. Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism and virulent imaginative geographies. Political Geography 30: 90-98.
Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy andMarxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies . 9: 133-147.
Springer, S. 2013. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with lawÕs violence inCambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change . 13: 520-546.
Springer, S. 2014. Neoliberalism in denial. Dialogues in Human Geography 4: 154-160.
Springer, S. 2015. Violent Neoliberalism: Development, Discourse and Dispossession in Cambodia . New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Uvin, P. 2003. Global dreams and local anger: from structural to acute violence in aglobalizing world, in Tetreault, M. A., Denemark, R. A., Thomas, K. P., and Burch, K. eds,Rethinking Global Political Economy: Emerging Issues, Unfolding Odysseys . London: Routledge, 147-161.
Wacquant, L. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham:Duke University Press.
Wade, R. 2003. Is globalization reducing poverty and inequality? International Journal of HealthServices 34: 381-414
Wainwright, J., and Kim, S-J. 2008. Battles in Seattle redux: transnational resistance to aneoliberal trade agreement. Antipode, 40: 513-534.
Willis K., Smith A., and Stenning A. 2008. Introduction: social justice and neoliberalism inSmith A., Stenning A., and Willis K. eds. Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives. London: Zed, 1-15