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The dominant conceptualisation of 'neoliberalism' is centred on 'free markets' and 'small states'. This understanding of neoliberalism - 'freemarket neoliberalism' - is widespread, within both academic and popular circles. Steger and Roy's claim that 'neoliberals across the globe share a common belief in the power of 'self-regulating' free markets to create a better world' (2010: x) typifies this understanding. It is not only scholars that have characterised neoliberalism as a 'free-market' doctrine; so too have the ostensible political opponents of the neoliberal project (e.g Rudd, 2009; Swan, 2014; Aly, 2014). This article argues that this understanding of neoliberalism fails to accurately capture the realities of the contemporary political economy. At stake is a diagnosis of the weak critical power of challenges to neoliberalism that go after the wrong target, doing battle with versions of neoliberalism that bear an only tenuous relationship to the 'realities' of neoliberal policy agendas.
Against 'free-market' conceptions; an emphasis on 'actually existing neoliberalism' can be a more useful understanding (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Peck and Tickell, 2002; Cahill 2010; Peck, Theodore and Brenner, 2012a; Cahill, 2012). This conceptualisation presents an opportunity for more effective criticism of neoliberal policy. Rather than assuming that neoliberal ideas and practices are synonymous, the methodological approach here is an empirical one, following Konings, that: 'in order to uncover the nature of neoliberal practices we need to shift to a conceptual register not shaped by neoliberal free-market discourse - to a framework that allows us to see what such practices affect and do rather than say and project' (2012: 55). This contrasts with the approach exemplified by Steger and Roy in which neoliberal ideas are taken as representative of the policies introduced in their name by successive neoliberal governments.
However, this article also looks to develop further the existing understanding of 'actually existing neoliberalism'. Whereas those who write on 'actually existing neoliberalism' tend to treat neoliberal practice as uneven - spatially and temporally variegated (Peck, Theodore and Brenner, 2012a; Dumenil and Levy, 2012), neoliberal 'theory' is too often treated as monolithic or universal. This article seeks to expand upon the established conception of 'actually existing neoliberalism', strengthening its ideational focus, suggesting that neoliberal 'theory' is itself a complex, heterogeneous and contradictory body of thought. With a deeper...