Abstract
This chapter is divided into four parts. The first section takes issue with the post-modernist version of resilience thinking which is elaborated (although not necessarily endorsed) by David Chandler. Resilience discourse is said to provide a solution to the radical uncertainty and unknowability of our social and natural worlds—one that relies on local communities and local knowledges. Chandler argues that current resilience thinking interprets the contemporary period as marking a shift towards a post-risk society where we fully acknowledge our own self-entanglement within the world and government is through society rather than over society. However, two major issues arise concerning resilience thinking. First, there is no in-depth analysis of power arising from the stratification of society. Second, post-modern resilience discourse provides no method by which to differentiate between local knowledges (is all local knowledge to be supported regardless of its political content simply because it is local?).
The second section of the chapter argues that rather than representing some radical rupture with current practices heralding the dawn of a new era, the manner in which resilience has been practically interpreted has effectively led to its incorporation into a larger neo-liberal framework. By emphasizing our supposed inability to intervene effectively in a complex, economic system, resilience thinking represents an ideological behavioural prescription promoting political passivity. As such, it helps mask the failure of political elites to put forward radical policy prescriptions in the face of neo-liberal crises.
The chapter then follows Chandler in developing a Foucauldian analysis of resilience thinking, but one that goes beyond a description of resilience thinking as a ‘regime of truth’ and one that views it as supplementing rather than supplanting neo-liberal governmentalities. It is the one that emphasizes the importance of comparing knowledges through the archaeological and genealogical methods enabling us to go beyond the ‘theoretical and political singularity’ of post-modernism. Using such methods, it is argued that resilience thinking represents an expansion of neo-liberal governmentality, rather than the emergence of a new episteme. In addition, although often overlooked in the literature, Foucault recognized the importance of understanding social structures—by understanding the power relations associated with social differentiations, we can better grasp how some discourses become dominant whilst others are subjugated.
The final section of this chapter therefore situates the emergence of resilience discourse in the context of neoliberalism-in-crisis. This crisis has multiple dimensions, but since 2007/2008 two are key: first, there is, for capital, a ‘realisation problem’, that is, a problem of generating profitable investment opportunities; and, second, a governance crisis over the legitimacy of neoliberalism per se. Resilience thinking has emerged in tandem with a further reduction in state welfare commitments, a further rolling back of employment rights and an intensification of privatisation of national assets. Rather than challenging neo-liberalism, resilience thinking is therefore best understood as a further elaboration of this discourse.
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Notes
- 1.
This work has heavily drawn upon material from within: A. Mckeown and J. Glenn. ‘The rise of resilience after the financial crises: A case of neoliberalism rebooted?’, Review of International Studies, pp. 1–22, 2017 © British International Studies Association, published by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.
- 2.
Post-modernism is most often associated with deconstructivism, intertextuality and ontological complexity and the challenges to knowledge of the world that these present. Chandler essentially argues that a post-modernist episteme is emerging as a result of our evolving recognition that the world is so complex that it renders it impossible to predict and control. As a result, top-down ‘modernist’ conceptions of social dynamics no longer work and that governance should shift to the grassroots level relying on situated ‘local’ knowledge.
- 3.
It should be noted that Chandler may not necessarily be advocating resilience thinking himself. See for example, Chandler and Reid (2016).
- 4.
As Joseph contends, ‘resilience is best understood in the context of rolling-out neoliberal governmentality. Its meaning varies depending on the place and the level where this occurs and the aims and objects of governance’. In other words, the exact form neoliberalism takes will be context and time dependent—yet there are certain commonalities (2013, pp. 38 and 51–2). See also, Macartney (2010), Peck and Theodore (2007), Brenner, Peck and Theodore (2010, pp. 182–222) and Jessop (2012, pp. 91–111).
- 5.
Hence his comment that ‘certain half witted “commentators” persist in labelling me a “structuralist”’ (Foucault 1984b, p. xiii).
- 6.
For an overview, see Gill (2012).
- 7.
Word in parenthesis added.
- 8.
- 9.
Kristina Zolatova, ‘Part II: Fanon and Foucault on Humanism and Rejecting the “Blackmail” of the Enlightenment’. http://percaritatem.com/2011/02/23/part-ii-fanon-and-foucault-on-humanism-and-rejecting-the-%e2%80%9cblackmail%e2%80%9d-of-the-enlightenment/
- 10.
- 11.
Italics in original.
- 12.
M. Foucault, ‘Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of ‘Political Reason’’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values, (1979), available at http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/f/foucault81.pdf, p. 254.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
As Minsky pointed out, financial markets exhibit a repetitive cycle beginning with hedge or ‘normal’ financing in which the cash flow is ‘more than sufficient to meet contractual payment commitments’. However, the low profit yield associated with this type of lending leads to more speculative forms of financing in which income flows are enough to pay off the interest but not the principal leading to a ‘rolling over of maturing debt’. The assumption is that the financial asset will increase in value sufficiently to eventually cover the missed payments. The Ponzi form of finance is where the cash flow covers neither the interest nor payment of principal due so that the actual ‘face amount of outstanding debt increases’ (Minsky 2008, pp. 230-31; Minsky May 1992, pp. 1–10).
- 17.
Directive 2014/59/Eu Of The European Parliament And Of The Council, 15 May 2014, Point 67 of the Preamble.
- 18.
This is very clear from the various memoranda of understanding that the Troika have signed with various national governments setting out bailout conditions. For example refer, to Greek MOU (August 11, 2015) and Portuguese MOU (17 May, 2011). For an overview of the various policies, refer to Pisani-Ferry, Sapir and Wolff (2013).
- 19.
Foucault in Gordon (1980, p. 77).
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Glenn, J.G. (2019). Neo-Liberalism Rebooted: Resilience Versus Resistance. In: Foucault and Post-Financial Crises. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77188-5_4
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