Abstract

Neoliberal ideas have been amazingly powerful and resilient since the 1980s, going from the conservative «roll-back» of the state to free up markets to the social democratic «roll-out» of the state to enhance markets and then the «ramp up» of state-like capacities in the international arena and the EU. This paper theorizes such power and resilience using the neo-institutionalist framework of discursive institutionalism to elucidate the evolution of neoliberal ideas and their impact on capitalist structures, institutions, and policies. The paper defines neoliberal resilience in five ways: adaptability and mutability of core principles, rhetoric versus the reality of non-implementation, strength in debates, strategic use, and institutional embedding. It identifies three forms of ideational power: persuasive power through ideas, coercive power over ideas, structural or institutional power in ideas. Using these tools for analysis, the paper details the ways in which such ideational power and resilience have evolved over time and, with them, national varieties of capitalism and welfare states. It concludes by asking whether neoliberalism’s power and resilience is finally at its end in view of the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of powerful alternative ideas and discourses, including populist nationalism and progressive sustainable and equitable growth