Neoliberal Europe: Enabling Ethno-Cultural Neutrality or Fueling Neo-Nationalist Sentiment?

Quentin Duroy

Journal of Economic Issues, 2014, vol. 48, issue 2, 469-476

Abstract: Ideologically committed to the neoclassical notion of "market discipline," the neoliberal regime is argued to promote principles of ethno-cultural neutrality and to create a level-playing field for all individuals regardless of race, class, gender, or other marker of minority status. However, in practice, neoliberal policies have increased the incidence of economic marginalization among lower and middle socio-economic classes in Europe, and have contributed to growing tensions between cultural majorities and ethnic minority groups. While similar sentiments associated with the rise of nationalism in nineteenth century Europe clearly predate the neoliberal era, in this paper I argue that neoliberal policies, backed by European Union institutions, have created material conditions which have exposed and widened structural incompatibilities between the notions of state and nation. Since the 1990s, these incompatibilities have legitimized the resurgence of radical nationalist sentiment within European nation-states, creating a favorable terrain for the populist rise of far-right factions. In lieu of promoting ethno-cultural neutrality, neoliberal policies have weakened liberal and social principles of inclusion, and have eroded welfare state provisioning systems in European democracies. They have fueled what Thorstein Veblen (1923, 28) referred to as "unreasoning habits of national conceit, fear, hate, contempt, and servility."

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2753/JEI0021-3624480221 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:48:y:2014:i:2:p:469-476

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624480221

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().