Te British Journal of Criminology, 2022, 62, 1305–1322 htps://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac034 Article © Te Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Disciplinary Neo-Liberalisation and the New Politics of Inequality Alexander Nunn and Daniela Tepe * *Alexander Nunn, Centre for Social, Cultural and Legal Research, One Friar Gate Square, Derby, University of Derby; a.nunn@derby.ac.uk; Daniela Tepe, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool. Overlaps exist between critical Criminology and critical International Political Economy (IPE). However, while criminologists are keen to engage with political economy, there has been less inter- est in criminology from scholars in IPE. Recently, though, a literature started to emerge within IPE that focusses on discipline, including research which focusses on ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’ yet without explicitly engaging with the criminological literature. Tis paper engages with criminological research to demonstrate areas of shared interest, particularly in understanding the role of discipline and consent in the structuring of the ‘social ensemble’ thereby ofering something of a corrective to the literature on ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. We argue that combining insights from Gramscian and (critical) Feminist social theory can help to explain the social reproduction of ‘hegemony’ in which discipline – including self-discipline – plays an important role. Long-term trends in the fracturing of the hegemonic post-war social ensemble were displaced by temporary ‘fxes’ related to consumerism, credit and discipline (including in state institutions, changing economic and ideological structures). However, in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 – the limits of these fxes are revealed and social polarisation is the result. In this context, disciplinary processes in and beyond state institutions are becoming more visible. KEY WORDS: discipline, critical political economy, hegemony, social reproduction, neoliberalism INTRODUCTION: CRITICAL INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY, CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY AND DISCIPLINARY NEOLIBERALISM Both co-authors hail from the home discipline of International Political Economy (IPE) and are now based in interdisciplinary departmental contexts that combine Social Policy and Criminology. Inspired by this experience, the topic of this special issue ofers a vehicle to explore the potential contributions of IPE to Criminology. Te ‘critical Criminology’ literature confrms that the path from Criminology to Political Economy is well trodden. But what of the reverse journey? Does travelling in the opposite direction from IPE toward crime/Criminology/social harm (or even ‘Zemiology’) reveal a slightly diferent perspective on the scenery that one passes? Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/62/5/1305/6702074 by guest on 18 September 2022