Chapter 6 Continuity and rupture in restraining the right to strike Ntina Tzouvala Introduction This contribution is based on the following presumption: neoliberalism must be understood and analysed on two distinct and interrelated levels: first, neoliberalism can be understood as an intellectual current stemming from the crisis of classical laissez-faire liberalism that was initiated already in the late nineteenth century and second, as a class strategy to revive capitalist profitability and hegemony in the last quarter of the twentieth century. This duality is essential in order to comprehend the peculiarities of neo-liberal legality. First, the intellectual novelty of neoliberalism and its attempt to respond to genuine problems of classical liberalism hints at the existence of a specifically neoliberal genre of legality that corresponds to the richness (and the contradictions) of the most influential intellectual tradition of our times. Hence, the idea that neoliberal legality is a ‘return’ to the archetypical liberal paradigm appears oversimplified. At the same time, we need to keep in mind that the rise of neoliberalism from an ensemble of intellectuals marginal to the mainstream ideology and governance technique of our time can only be explained in reference to the political and economic interests it is anchored to. In a nutshell, neoliberalism should also be understood as a strategy of the ruling capitalist class to re-establish their profitability and consolidate their dominance in turbulent times. Consequently, neoliberal legality should be analysed through its continuity with previous forms of capitalist legality. This dual approach enables us to conceptualise neoliberal legality both as novel and as immanent, as intellectually ground- breaking and socially integrated in a nexus of capitalist relations of power and exploitation. Because the right to strike is situated at the heart of class confrontation and has gone through multiple stages of regulation, limitation and restriction in the course of the last decades, it provides us with a good case study to examine the above sketched assumption. More specifically, the focus of this chapter will be the diachronically diverse utilisation of the exact same legal framework in Greece to achieve different social outcomes in relation to the right to strike. In turn this points to legal indeterminacy of law as the quality that enables bridging the Neoliberal Legality : Understanding the Role of Law in the Neoliberal Project, edited by Honor Brabazon, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unimelb/detail.action?docID=4747511. Created from unimelb on 2017-07-20 19:38:57. Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.