Neoliberalism is a broad and often contested concept, commonly used to describe an economic paradigm that rose to global prominence in the late twentieth century, particularly from the 1980s onward. Rooted in the classical liberal ideal of the self-regulating market, neoliberalism is not a single, uniform doctrine but a complex configuration of ideas, practices, and institutions. A useful way to understand its reach and durability is to conceptualize neoliberalism as operating simultaneously across three interrelated dimensions: as an ideology, as a mode of governance, and as a policy package.
First, neoliberalism functions as an ideology. Ideologies are systems of widely shared ideas and patterned beliefs that provide societies with interpretive frameworks for understanding political and economic life. They simplify complex realities into accessible narratives about how the world works and how it ought to work. In doing so, ideologies encourage particular forms of action while discouraging others, thereby legitimizing certain interests and power relations.
The ideological codifiers of neoliberalism are global power elites drawn from diverse but interconnected spheres: executives of transnational corporations, corporate lobbyists, influential journalists and public relations professionals, public intellectuals, entertainers and celebrities, senior bureaucrats, and political leaders. Together, these actors shape public discourse by promoting idealized images of a consumer-driven, free-market world. Through sophisticated engagement with mass media, they present global markets as efficient, natural, and morally desirable mechanisms for organizing human affairs.
Neoliberal ideology consistently emphasizes global economic interdependence anchored in free-market capitalism. Its narratives highlight international trade and finance, transnational corporations, global flows of capital, goods, services, and labor, as well as offshore financial systems. In this sense, neoliberalism is a profoundly economistic ideology. Much like its ideological rival, Marxism, it places the production, circulation, and exchange of material goods at the center of human experience, often marginalizing social, cultural, and ethical considerations that cannot be easily translated into market terms.
The second dimension of neoliberalism concerns governance. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of “governmentality,” neoliberalism represents a distinctive mode of governing that rests on specific assumptions about human behavior, power, and social order. Neoliberal governmentality is grounded in entrepreneurial values such as competitiveness, self-interest, flexibility, and decentralization. It celebrates individual responsibility and empowerment while advocating the devolution of authority from centralized state institutions to localized units, private actors, and market mechanisms.
Within this framework, the self-regulating market becomes the model for proper governance. Rather than prioritizing traditional goals such as social justice, collective welfare, or civic solidarity, neoliberal governance imports managerial techniques from the corporate world into public administration. These include strategic planning, risk management, cost–benefit analysis, efficiency benchmarking, performance indicators, and quantitative targets. Governance is increasingly evaluated through metrics of output, productivity, and financial return.
As a result, political institutions are reshaped to resemble business enterprises. Public officials are encouraged to adopt entrepreneurial identities, viewing themselves not as custodians of a qualitatively defined public good, but as market-oriented actors accountable for efficiency and fiscal performance. Citizens, in turn, are reframed as consumers, clients, or investors rather than as members of a political community bound by shared obligations.
The third dimension of neoliberalism—closely linked to the first two—is its manifestation as a concrete policy package. Although policy specifics vary across countries and regions, neoliberal reforms typically include deregulation of markets, privatization of public assets, liberalization of trade and finance, reduction of public spending, and restructuring of labor markets. These policies operationalize neoliberal ideology and governance by embedding market logic into legal, institutional, and administrative frameworks.
Taken together, these three dimensions reveal neoliberalism as far more than a set of economic ideas. It is a comprehensive project that reshapes how societies think, govern, and act. Its power lies precisely in the way ideology, governance, and policy reinforce one another—producing a durable framework that extends market rationality into nearly every sphere of social life. Understanding neoliberalism through this threefold lens is therefore essential for any serious analysis of contemporary political economy and global governance.
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