Polanyi,Hayek and embedded neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

Written originally on the seventieth anniversary of the publication of Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, this article critically analyses how the ideas of Hayek and Polanyi have been deployed to understand neoliberalism. It argues that dominant scholarly interpretations tend to miss the significance of each thinker to an understanding of neoliberalism, as well as some of the key dynamics of neoliberal forms of capitalist regulation. Drawing upon the work of Polanyi, the article advances the concept of embedded neoliberalism. From the 1970s neoliberal regulations became deeply embedded in a series of institutions, class relations and ideological norms. This helps to explain both the durability of neoliberalism, and the onset of crisis in 2008. In this context, Hayek’s ideas are best understood as providing a malleable set of concepts underpinning neoliberal ideology, rather than the chief causal agent in the neoliberal transformation of states and economies.     

Gay Fathers Expanding the Possibilities for Us All

Abstract

This article describes a qualitative research study of 21 men who became fathers as openly gay men. The fathers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in a focus group format. The data were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. The narrative data depict the men's paths toward fatherhood. The themes elicited from their narratives suggested how gay men are changing traditional cultural norms for fathers, families, and masculinity. The authors propose that by degendering parenting, reconceptualizing family, and reworking masculine gender roles, gay fathers are expanding role norms in novel ways that may serve as alternative models for all families.     

“I Want to Feel Like a Full Man”: Conceptualizing Gay,Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men’s Sexual Difficulties

Current understandings of sexual difficulties originate from a model that is based on the study of heterosexual men and women. Most research has focused on sexual difficulties experienced by heterosexual men incapable of engaging in vaginal penetration. To better understand men’s perceptions and experiences of sexual difficulties, seven focus groups and 29 individual interviews were conducted with gay (n = 22), bisexual (n = 5), and heterosexual (n = 25) men. In addition, the extent to which difficulties reported by gay and bisexual men differ from heterosexual men was explored. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis applying an inductive approach. Two intercorrelated conceptualizations were identified: penis function (themes: medicalization, masculine identity, psychological consequences, coping mechanisms) and pain (themes: penile pain, pain during receptive anal sex). For the most part, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men reported similar sexual difficulties; differences were evident regarding alternative masculinity, penis size competition, and pain during receptive anal sex. The results of this study demonstrate the complexity of men’s sexual difficulties and the important role of sociocultural, interpersonal, and psychological factors. Limitations and suggested directions for future research are outlined.     

Rethinking the ‘neoliberal thought collective’ thesis

ABSTRACT

Numerous scholars have identified the ‘neoliberal thought collective’ as the key driver of the neoliberal transformation. These accounts emphasize the building of neoliberal hegemony through the mobilization of this collective, and the New Right parties who aligned to these ideas. We argue that Australia's corporatist road to neoliberalism pushes against this thesis, as the movement found little sympathy among policy makers. Rather, the thought collective acted more like a ‘ginger group’, attempting to radicalize public debate and create space for new neoliberal arrangements. In Australia, successive centre-left Labor governments rolled out neoliberalism in a series of formal corporatist arrangements with the trade union movement. This paper sets out a reconsideration of the role of the thought collective, on the basis of the Australian experience, and argues this can move us beyond the ideational determinism that has come to characterize key accounts of how neoliberalism developed.     

Legislative Update on GLBT Family Measures

Abstract

This article examines discourses of gender and sexuality that feature in the social work assessment of gay men who apply to foster or adopt in the United Kingdom (UK). Using data from interviews with social workers and managers, the author argues that three versions of the category gay were dominant. In the first of these, gay men were imagined to be maternal and/or feminine. In the second, they were seen as a source of perversion and sexual risk, and in the third, they were assumed to present problematic models of gender. The author critiques these ideas, and argues instead for social welfare practices that reconsider and expand our notions of gender, sexuality, parenting, and kinship.     

The rise of chemsex: queering collective intimacy in neoliberal London

Since 2011, various public health organizations have observed the growth of the sexual practice ‘chemsex’ in the UK, primarily in London. The term chemsex refers to group sexual encounters between gay and bisexual men in which the recreational drugs GHB/GBL, mephedrone and crystallized methamphetamine are consumed. This article uses a conjunctural perspective to make sense of the rise of chemsex within the historical conditions in which it has emerged. Drawing on a document analysis as well as interviews with 15 gay and bisexual men, this article argues that the rise of chemsex can be interpreted as an embodied response to material conditions shaped by neoliberalism: specifically as a desire for an intimate mode of collectivity during a historical moment when collectivity itself is being superseded by competitive individualism as the privileged mode of being in the world (Gilbert, J. [2013]. Common ground: democracy and collectivity in an Age of individualism. London: Pluto Press). In doing so, this article provides a different account to pathologizing media and medical representations of chemsex that appeared in 2015, whilst also contributing to a growing literature that attempts to map the balance of forces of the present conjuncture.     

Lesbians and Gay Men Embrace Their Sexual Orientation After Conversion Therapy and Ex-Gay Ministries

Abstract

This article examines narratives of gay men and lesbians who participated in conversion therapies and/or ex-gay ministries in order to change their sexual orientation to that of heterosexual. Data for this study were gathered through an analysis of the stories of 14 people, published in a document titled Finally Free, who describe their negative experiences with conversion therapy through ex-gay ministries. Analysis of the data revealed seven common psychosocial issues faced by gay men and lesbians who turned to conversion therapy in an attempt to become heterosexual. These issues provide knowledge for social workers' intervention with gay men and lesbians seeking healing and personal growth after participating in conversion therapy and ex-gay ministries.     

Against exceptionalism: the legitimacy of the neoliberal age

ABSTRACT

After the financial crisis of 2007–08, many commentators, adopting a broadly Polanyian logic of reasoning, expected a departure from neoliberalism. The failure of this shift to materialize has typically been accounted for in ‘exceptionalist’ terms: the persistence of neoliberalism is understood not as a function of a specific legitimacy it has itself engendered, but in terms of external interventions by elites who manage to ‘capture’ executive and regulatory institutions and so to bypass democratic pressures. This paper argues that such an approach underestimates the endogenous sources of legitimacy and resilience that neoliberal governance commands. It criticizes the idea that neoliberalism is at its core dependent on a Schmittian exceptionalism and suggests a perspective on Hayek's articulation of neoliberalism that dissociates it from such an exceptionalist approach. The article proceeds to interrogate the rationality of neoliberalism by examining its distinctively secular temporal logic, rooted in speculation, preemption and reaction.     

Young,Effeminate, and Strange: Early Photographic Portraiture of Truman Capote

How did the young Truman Capote, a homosexual writer who closeted neither his person nor his writing, succeed amidst the homophobia and censorship of 1948? This paper examines how Capote vaulted himself into celebrity through a campaign of photographic self-representation that climaxed with the spectacular notoriety of the author photo of his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote's photographic portraits allowed him both to be recognized as gay and to be seen and discussed as nonspecifically queer–as effeminate, childish, and strange–deviations less threatening than the bald assertion of sexual difference, although associated with homosexuality through the nexus of nonnormative masculinity. Capote thus both deflected and attracted attention to the homosexual contents of his work and person to best serve his career. His media manipulations offer a case study of how gay men could strategically harness the simultaneous currents of fascination and repulsion with nonnormative masculinity in postwar America.     

Strategies Used by Gay and Bisexual Young Men to Cope With Heterosexism

ABSTRACT

Although the pervasiveness of heterosexism in the lives of gay and bisexual youth is well established, little is known about the strategies these youth use to cope with stigma and discrimination based on their sexual minority status. In this qualitative study, the authors present findings and implications for clinical practice based on interviews with 43 gay and bisexual young men. Respondents’ coping strategies are discussed in relation to current theory and research on coping with stigma, as well as the emerging field of emotion regulation. The narratives from the current study suggest that the emotion regulation paradigm is well suited to understanding the functions of strategies for coping with heterosexism and similar types of stigma.     

Between Money,Morality and Masculinity

Abstract

This paper focuses on the supply-side of Chiang Mai's gay bars, that is, the male sex workers called dek bar or “bar boys”¹ in Thai. I formulate some explanations why these young men -more than half of whom do not consider themselves to be “homosexual” -take on a job as a male sex worker. In this analysis I focus on certain notions in traditional Thai society, trends in contemporary urban Thai society, the economics of work in a gay bar, as well as the sexual behaviour of male sex workers and the concepts they use to describe their work.     

“It Takes a Man to Put Me on the Bottom”: Gay Men’s Experiences of Masculinity and Anal Intercourse

In anal intercourse between gay men, men who are typically insertive (“tops”) are often perceived as, and may identify as, more masculine than those who are typically receptive (“bottoms”). “Versatile” men, who may adopt either position, may be perceived as more gender balanced and may transcend the gender-role stereotypes associated with self-labeling as top or bottom. The aim of this study was to explore how gay men’s beliefs about masculinity were associated with their beliefs about the gendered nature of sexual self-labels and their behavior in anal intercourse. Individual semistructured interviews were undertaken with 17 UK-based gay men. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) identified that perceptions of tops and bottoms as gendered social identities varied depending on the extent to which gay men subscribed to the mandates of hegemonic masculinity, the dominant masculinity in Western society. The findings also suggested that some gay men differentiated between top and bottom as social identities and topping and bottoming as gendered behaviors. This had implications for gay men’s behaviors in anal intercourse. It is suggested that future efforts to engage with gay men about their sexual behavior should account for their beliefs regarding the gender-role stereotypes associated with gay sexual self-labels.     

Roma and the politics of double discourse in contemporary Europe

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the politics of ‘double discourse’ in relation to Roma that has evolved in contemporary neoliberal Europe. On the one hand, the double discourse promotes the integration, rights and equal opportunities of Roma, on the other, it denies recognition of, and ways to address, enduring structural violence and rising social insecurity. The article argues that the politics of ‘double discourse’, as a neoliberal approach towards Roma, is structured by two contradictory discourses that speak to different audiences, using duplicitous approaches to create anti-Roma consensus and maintain the critical difference and subordinated position of the racialised Romani populations in Europe. By studying the representation of Roma in the cases of so-called 'child theft' in Greece and Ireland, and in the recent ‘refugee crisis’, the paper identifies and discusses three dimensions of contemporary neoliberal double discourse: racialised de-Europeanisation, neoliberal undeservingness and (dis)articulation of citizenship.     

The Second Closet: A Qualitative Study of HIV Stigma Among Seropositive Gay Men in a Southern U.S. City

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Stigma connected with HIV/AIDS has decreased considerably since the early epidemic yet affects those living with HIV in many ways. Little research, particularly qualitative research, concerning HIV stigma from the perspective of gay men has emerged. The present qualitative study aimed to fill this evidence gap by examining how HIV stigma is perceived and experienced by gay men who have become HIV-infected and how they respond to this stigma. Methods: Thematic analysis of 19 gay men's narratives identified six main themes. Results: Encountering HIV stigmatization was common and was linked to the physical stigmata identifying respondents as HIV-positive. Overwhelmingly, they found stigmatization to be most intensely felt within gay communities. One profound theme was internalized HIV stigma, referring to respondents’ internalized negative feelings about their HIV status. A related theme was the closeted nature of HIV. Lastly, regarding how the men dealt with the HIV diagnosis and experiences of HIV stigma, a theme of adaptation became clear. Conclusions: Although exploratory, the results can serve as a beginning framework for understanding and assisting seropositive gay men who experience HIV stigma. The findings are important because it is realistic to expect that in a climate in which HIV has become increasingly invisible and closeted and in which infections are on the rise, gay and bisexual men will be increasingly affected and infected by HIV.     

Capital,conflict and convergence: a political understanding of neoliberalism and its relationship to capitalist transformation

ABSTRACT

In this article we argue against influential analyses of neoliberalism that prioritize variegation and the role of ideas as key theoretical foci relevant to understanding neoliberalism’s diffusion into myriad national and political settings. Rather, we contend that crucial to understanding neoliberalism is the role of politically-produced convergence around market rationality that reflects two core processes: the reorganization of production and the ascendency of financialization. We present a theorization and analysis of neoliberalism’s political production and diffusion over time, explaining its contested evolution and impact across diverse settings (both ‘North’ and ‘South’) and emphasizing its ever-intensifying symbiotic relationship with the consolidating world market in which the former has increasingly come to serve as the latter’s operating system (OS). Further, we posit that neoliberalism’s form, function and impact demand analytically prioritizing the leverage of constellations of ideological and material interests within the contradictory context of consolidating relations of production and financialization. Our analysis thus challenges many previous expositions of neoliberalism for their failure to locate neoliberalism’s manifestation as arising out of social conflict within particular junctures that privilege certain social forces and ideas over others. We also distinguish our position by highlighting how manifestations of neoliberalism in various settings have combined to yield a greater world market in which variegation has gradually given way to ever-intensifying disciplinary pressures towards market-policy conformity (mono-policy). While current populist movements may well turn out to be important counter movements to neoliberal hegemony, especially if they can internationalize, the disciplining effect of the world market renders many nationally-oriented policy alternatives costly and politically fraught.     

Silent dark: the orders of silence

ABSTRACT

This article examines anxiety, arguing that it is a systemic feature of neoliberalism which regenerates the economy and acts in a conservative manner, thereby effectively preventing social change. Anxiety is explored using psychoanalytic theory to extend Foucault’s conception of neoliberal governmentality as proposed in his lectures on neoliberalism at the Collège de France. Relying on Foucault’s notion of governmentality as an analytic perspective, this article does not present the economy or the state as the origin of power in neoliberalism. Rather, these are seen as mediums of power, whereas the anchorage point of power relations is understood to be a particular form of governmentality. In neoliberalism, this anchorage point of power is largely supported and strongly characterised by anxiety. While examining the psychic life of power in neoliberalism, I avoid positioning and thus analysing anxiety either on the individual or the macro level of society. Rather, showing that anxiety exposes the weakness of such clean divisions, it is argued that neoliberal subjects are nowadays governed through anxiety.     

Masculine Gender-Role Congruence among Sexual Minority Men

Sexual minority men’s sexual identity may be vulnerable to feelings of masculine gender-role incongruence within heteronormative dominant cultural contexts. This study explored associations between masculine gender-role congruence/incongruence and various aspects of sexual identity development in a sample of 106 nonheterosexual men between ages 18 and 74?years (M?=?34.86, SD?=?14.32). The majority of the sample identified as gay (79%), with the rest of the sample identifying as bisexual (10%), and nonexclusively same-sex-attracted sexual identity labels (e.g., pansexual, queer; 10%). Slightly more than half of the men reported congruence between their actual self-perception of masculinity and their ideal masculine presentation. However, men who experienced greater masculine gender-role incongruence, specifically presenting with lower masculine appearance and behavior than they desired, reported higher levels of identity distress and self-consciousness. Thus, though masculine gender roles are being challenged and gender nonconformity is becoming more widely accepted, masculine gender roles are still relevant to the lives of sexual minority men. Future research and clinical implications are discussed.     

Work,culture, and play in the neoliberal condition

ABSTRACT

Foucault’s [2008. The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the collège de France 1978–1979. New York, NY: Picador] lectures on neoliberalism present a powerful challenge to the Marxist critique of capitalist work as alienating and dehumanizing. Foucault suggests that neoliberalism allows work to be seen in terms of an individual’s pursuit of personal happiness. Seminal cultural theory in Hoggart [1957/2009. The uses of literary: Aspects of working-class life. London: Penguin] and Williams [1961. The long revolution. London: Chatto & Windus] view working-class culture as a matter of tacit rules and a ‘structure of feeling’ that permeates everyday life. Adorno’s critique of the capitalist ‘culture industry’, by contrast, suggests that a culture of neoliberal capitalism would be an oxymoron. This perspective is self-defeating, I argue, as we then essentially give up the task of understanding how neoliberalism translated into a pervasive social psychology. Following Richard Sennett’s [2008. The craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; 2012. Together. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press] work on craft and cooperation, I examine some elements of such neoliberal culture. Across many contemporary cities, there is a clear trend of local small-scale production that stands at odds with the aesthetics if not the underlying reality of the globalized economy. This suggests that utopian counter-currents to neoliberal governance are better drawn from reconfiguration rather than abandonment of work.