Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Marine Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpol Hegemony and resistance: Disturbing patterns and hopeful signs in the impact of neoliberal policies on small-scale fisheries around the world Evelyn Pinkerton School of Resource and Environmental Management, 8888 University Drive, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada, V5A 1S6 ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Neoliberalism Fisheries policy Livelihoods ITQs Financialization Loss of sovereignty Local conservation rights Social movements to protect habitat Alternative marketing ABSTRACT This paper reviews the major themes and contributions of this Special Issue in light of a broader social science literature on how to conceptualize small-scale fisheries, the role of the state in facilitating or limiting neoliberalism, and the failure of neoliberal policies to improve conservation. It concludes with a look at ways in which neoliberalism is being undermined by emerging alternatives. 1. Introduction This Special Issue, global in scope, builds on a Special Section/Issue in the November 2015 issue of Marine Policy, which addressed the effect of neoliberalism on North American small-scale fisheries (SSFs) [1]. Briefly, neoliberalism was defined in that issue as emphasizing private property rights, economic efficiency, deregulation, economic growth, government cutbacks, and devolution of responsibilities and risks to the private sector. A question to be addressed in this Special Issue is whether anything has changed notably since then. Is neoliberalism even more ascendant or is it encountering more resistance? And is this fully reflected in the experience of SSFs? If the 18 papers in this Special Issue are any indication, there have indeed been important changes. New issues covered for the first time or in more depth in this issue include: (1) the role of national and international speculative finance as the focal point for profit in fisheries and aquaculture, overshadowing concerns about production, sustain- able management, and communities; (2) “green” neoliberalism and the rhetoric of Corporate Social Responsibility in which governments prioritize their roles as development advocates and investors over their responsibilities to protect the environment and sustainably manage wild fisheries; (3) the growth of social movements led by indigenous SSFs to protect fish habitat; (4) the successful resistance by artisanal fisheries to invasion and overfishing by larger gear and development projects; (5) government regulation or re-regulation which dampens neoliberal control mechanisms; and (6) the growth of alternative marketing and licensing strategies by SSFs which bypass the corporate fish processors. These differing illustrations of the dominance of or challenges to neoliberalism are reflected in opposing declarations of neoliberal analysts. For example, economist Joseph Stiglitz pronounced in August 2016 that “neoliberalism is dead”. His assertion was based on neoliberal thinkers’ growing disenchantment with their own doctrine since the 2008–2010 recession, which required massive state bail-outs and Keynesian-style stimulus measures. Stiglitz's claim was also inspired by growing inequality and critiques of the negative economic impacts of inequality from economists at the International Monetary Fund [2]. On the other hand, geographer/anthropologist David Harvey analyzed how the neoliberal “hegemonic mode of discourse” had made seemingly permanent inroads into the Swedish welfare state, in which the goals of full employment and equitable income distribution were overridden when Sweden entered the European Union in 1993 and by Sweden's own neoliberal program of deficit reduction, inflation control, and balanced budgets, a program which survived the return to power of Social Democrats in 1994 [3]. This introduction to the Special Issue on Neoliberalism and Global Small-Scale Fisheries uses these divergent viewpoints as an opportu- nity to consider the different ways that both neoliberal forces and challenges to them are operating at greater velocity. In this situation, papers in this Special Issue contribute to our understanding of the conditions which tip outcomes one way or another. Fully half the papers focus mainly on alternatives to, or even direct challenges to, neoliberal impacts on SSFs, while a majority include some discussion http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.11.012 Received 11 November 2016; Accepted 11 November 2016 E-mail address: epinkert@sfu.ca. Marine Policy 80 (2017) 1–9 Available online 23 November 2016 0308-597X/ © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK