Ward, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-3605-9931 and Da Costa Vieira, T. (2024) Authoritarian neoliberalism between Johnson and Jupiter: Declining legitimacy and the elevation of home affairs in post-Brexit Britain and Macron's France. Geoforum, 149. 103942. ISSN 0016-7185
Abstract
In the face of protracted stagnation following the global financial crisis, democratic governments who remain committed to neoliberalism are still required to secure popular support for their programmes. This article evaluates how this dilemma has presaged a shift in the relationship between governmental attempts to maintain neoliberal legitimacy and the imposition of authoritarian reforms. We argue that, in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, this shift has consisted of the elevation of home affairs policy and the advance of a ‘mutated’ politics of legitimation characterised by explicit forms of ‘othering’ and hostility towards the wider political system. Drawing on the examples of the UK and France, we show how this deepening authoritarianism has manifested along two interconnected axes: (1) increased police powers and suppression of protests and civil liberties; (2) enhanced border security and restrictions on citizenship. Contributing to scholarship on authoritarian neoliberalism, we argue that this elevation of home affairs not only augurs the intensification of authoritarianism, but also reveals how governments have utilised popular resistance to authoritarian reforms to generate new forms of reactionary ‘consent’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | authoritarian neoliberalism; UK; France; policing; borders; legitimacy; home affairs |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/Y007581/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jan 2024 17:05 |
Last Modified: | 01 Feb 2024 15:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.103942 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:208143 |