https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920517699153 Critical Sociology 2017, Vol. 43(4-5) 611–613 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0896920517699153 journals.sagepub.com/home/crs Neoliberalism Since the Crisis Damien Cahill University of Sydney, Australia Alfredo Saad-Filho SOAS, University of London, UK Among critical social scientists and progressive activists alike, analysis of neoliberalism has become inseparable from the examination of the crisis that has engulfed the global economy since 2007. When the crisis began, it was interpreted by many, not least the mainstream media and even some of the staunchest advocates of neoliberalism, as a crisis of the model of capitalism that had dominated global economic policy for the previous two-and-a-half decades. Moreover, neoliberal policies promoting financialization were widely held to be responsible for the onset of crisis. As states responded to the crisis with (what appeared to be) new restrictions on finance capital and the nationalization of some of the world’s largest banks and financial corporations, many thought it reasonable to conclude that the neoliberal era was coming to an end. Yet, as the global economic crisis continues, so does the rollout of recognizably neoliberal poli- cies of austerity, privatization, deregulation and more and more features of the welfare states built in the postwar era. They have been used as tools of crisis management, even as states have experi- mented with new forms of economic regulation, such as quantitative easing. Particularly in those countries worst hit by recession, such tools have deepened and (provisionally) channelled abroad the economic crisis, instead of resolving it, while contributing to the stagnation of demand and miring ordinary people in perpetual austerity. It is perhaps unsurprising then that contestation over post-crisis neoliberalism is evident in many of the recent seismic political developments across the globe. Most obviously, the rise of radical left-wing parties in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere, and the popularity of leaders such as British Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, or Bernie Sanders in the USA, are direct reactions to the devastating effects of enforced neoliberal austerity. These follow earlier political movements against some of the harshest forms of neoliberalism in the Global South – such as the so-called ‘Pink Tide’ that carried a series of (more-or-less radical) left-wing parties to government across Latin America. But the echoes of dissent against neoliberalism, however distorted, can also be heard in the successful ‘leave’ campaign in the British referendum on its EU membership, in some of Donald Trump’s economic policies (even as he is so obviously one of the world’s leading beneficiaries of neoliberalization), and in the rise of the National Front, in France, alongside the mobilization of racial prejudices and national imaginaries in many countries. The premise of this special issue of Critical Sociology is that an understanding of neoliberalism since the crisis is crucial for comprehending the contradictions, conflicts and social forces reshaping the contemporary global political economy. Despite scholarship on, about and around neoliberalism having burgeoned since the onset of the global crisis, a settled definition of neoliberalism remains 699153CRS 0 0 10.1177/0896920517699153Critical SociologyCahill editorial 2017 Editorial