Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance
The Crisis of Democratic Rights
Fighting for democratic rights despite their neoliberal erosion
Description
Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance explores how democratic governments continue to exclude and abuse people. It examines the authoritarian roots of neoliberal policies that portray markets as the solution to every single problem and how these policies have been prioritized above democracy, human rights, and even nature. By examining global trends, the book identifies neoliberalism as the current dominant expression of capitalism. Grounded in emergency, security, police mechanisms, and the politics of the spectacular, this framework helps explain the rationale behind the persistence of unlawful governance and its legitimizing strategies.
In looking at the ways in which people resist, the book honors the perspective of the excluded and the voices of those most immediately affected by neoliberal austerity—from activists defending land and rights to communities subjected to various forms of exploitation, extractivism, and displacement. Bringing in these voices and theoretical perspectives, including from beyond the English-speaking world, this book highlights alternative ways of thinking about democracy and rights, drawing from the tradition of the commons. Through its deep analysis of history, theory, and world events, Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance offers fresh insights into how various forms of emergency measures, policing, and security are used to privilege markets over people and the planet, while also emphasizing the crucial role of popular movements in defending and expanding democratic rights and to rebuilding commons.
Guillermina Seri is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Union College.
Reviews
“The spectre of neoliberalism, taken together with its reactionary offshoot neofascism, haunts all humanity in our time. Perhaps no other work currently available provides as comprehensive a critique of what Guillermina Seri refers to as ‘the unhinged form of capitalism known as neoliberalism,’ or so clearly presents the way forward: the struggle for universal human rights, substantive democracy, and defense of the earthly commons.”
- John Bellamy Foster, author of Trump in the White House
“Reports of the death of neoliberalism have been greatly exaggerated. As Guillermina Seri shows in this insightful book, neoliberalism is not only alive and kicking, but is also killing, executing, torturing, maiming, and terrorizing—forms of violence founded on the logic of security and an ideology of emergency. In showing the extent to which the reason of neoliberalism is conjoined with reason of state, this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of sovereignty and its police.”
- Mark Neocleous, author of Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police
“Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance demonstrates the powerful role that popular struggles have played in resisting state and corporate violence, which have underpinned the neoliberal project. Professor Seri’s book is essential in demonstrating and defending human rights, especially in the face of the climate crisis. For, however fragile, human rights, as she eloquently argues, both precede and transcend the legal regimes that states have implemented, such as emergency powers, to justify the use of violent coercion.”
- Ruth Blakeley, University of Sheffield