Media Rituals and the Celtic Tiger: The Neoliberal Nation and its Transnational Circulation

Abstract

Neoliberalism is sometimes represented as synonymous with globalization. Activists condemn the ideology of “neoliberal globalization” and its policy inscription in the “Washington consensus”. The critique morphs into a story of declining state power: of how the political agency of nation-states has been undermined by the creation of a politico-judicial architecture beholden to the principles of “free trade” and “free markets”. The nation-state is positioned as a bulwark against the external forces of neoliberalism, a site of democratic and sovereign resistance to the politically unaccountable masters of our neoliberal age.