Mr Bush and Neo-liberalism

Abstract

While the United States has been a central actor in creating the trade, debt and investment regimes of neo-liberalism, less attention has been given to the relation of neo-liberalism to America’s muscular foreign policy under George W. Bush and its neo-conservative premises. In this essay I first clarify what is meant by neo-liberalism and argue that Bush Doctrine policies can be interpreted as strategy for expanding the applicability of neo-liberalism through parts of the global South which had previously rejected Washington Consensus doctrine. A second section examines the particular version of neo-liberalism undertaken by the Bush administration, and not only in relation to Iraq. It argues that the manner in which privatization, contracting out, and deregulation are implemented is significantly at variance from the transparency and adherence to free market principles that neo-liberalism in theory celebrates. A third examines the Bush electoral coalition and leading factions within the administration, suggesting that this historic bloc represents a departure from the make-up of the establishment coalition which traditionally governs the American polity. A fourth section examines the oppositional forces arrayed in critique of the Bush agenda ranging from political moderates, traditional conservatives, libertarians, mainstream multilateralists and corporate interests representing large-scale capital.