Rethinking British Neoliberalism
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University College London
11-12 September 2017
Conference Information
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Neoliberalism is often used in contemporary political debate to indicate an ill-defined hegemonic discourse or political project assumed to have triumphed in late twentieth and early twenty-first century politics. Neoliberalism is generally taken, in this reading, to be a right-wing formation, promoted by political economists, think-tanks, and politicians. The aim of this conference is to evaluate this widely-held understanding of neoliberalism by bringing together historians whose work offers more complex and nuanced accounts of the origins and practice of neoliberalism in late-twentieth century Britain.
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Conference Organisers:
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwate (University College London)
Aled Davies (University of Cambridge)
Ben Jackson (University of Oxford)
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This conference has been funded by the Economic History Society, the Royal Historical Society, and University College, Oxford.
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Conference Schedule
Monday 11 September
UCL: South Wing 9 Garwood Lecture Theatre (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/garwood-lt)
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13.00-13.15
Welcome and Introduction
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, University College London
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13.15-14.45
From Merit to the Market? John Vaizey and the Rise of Thatcherism, 1962-1983.
Dean Blackburn, University of Nottingham
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Free markets and feminism: the neo-liberal defence of the male bread-winner model in Britain, c. 1980-1997.
Ben Jackson, University of Oxford
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In Place of Government: Community Action and the Rise of British Liberalism, c. 1970-1980.
David Ellis, University of York
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Commentator: Chika Tonooka, University of Cambridge
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15.15-16.45
Governmentality, state, politics: frameworks for a genealogy of British neoliberalism.
Colin Gordon
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Deregulating the local 'market': Sunday trading controversies in the early 1970s
Sarah Mass, University of Michigan
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Buying into neoliberalism: Investment Clubs in 1980s Britain.
Amy Edwards, University of Bristol
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Commentator: Otto Saumarez Smith, University of Oxford
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17.15-18.15
British Business and Margaret Thatcher.
Neil Rollings, University of Glasgow
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The City of London, the British State, and Neoliberalism.
Aled Davies, University of Cambridge
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Commentator: Amy Edwards, University of Bristol
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Tuesday 12 September
UCL: South Wing 9 Garwood Lecture Theatre (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/garwood-lt)
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10.00-11.30
A Strange Fascination: The influence of German Ordoliberalism in post-war Britain.
Robert Ledger, Queen Mary University of London
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“The Permissive and Lawless Society is a By-Product of Socialism”: Selsdon Man, Morality and Neoliberalism’s Route into Conservatism.
James Freeman, University of Bristol
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“If Mr Gladstone were alive today…”: The Liberal Party and the roots of neoliberalism in twentieth-century Britain.
Peter Sloman, University of Cambridge
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“Without Politics”: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and the Political in Britain, c. 1966-2002.
Matthew Francis, University of Birmingham
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Commentator: Lise Butler, City University of London
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11.45-13.15
Constraints on neo-liberalism in Britain since the 1970s: the limits on ‘market forces’ in a de-industrializing economy and a ‘New Speenhamland’.
Jim Tomlinson, University of Glasgow
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What came between Liberalism and Neo-Liberalism? Rethinking Keynesianism, the welfare state and British Social Democracy.
David Edgerton, King's College London
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Neoliberal Social Imaginaries: how did neoliberals believe it and get others to do so too?
Patrick Joyce, University of Manchester
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Commentator: Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, University College London
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14.15-15.45
British State Power since the 1960s. Neoliberalism in Practice?
Jon Wilson, King's College London
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Good grounds for upsetting the technocrats: Criticisms of large, state-funded technological projects among the New Right in Britain, 1967-1983.
Thomas Kelsey, King's College London
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'Modell Deutschland' and the post-oil shock economic stabilization of Britain, 1976-1989: New Realism rather than neoliberalism?
Samuel Beroud, University of Geneva
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Commentator: Emily Robinson, University of Sussex
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16.15-17.45
The Neoliberal Contours of Unemployment Policy in Britain since the 1980s.
Bernhard Rieger, University College London
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Managing Decline: Competing Conceptions of Urban Regeneration in 1980s Liverpool.
Alexander Scott, University of Wales Trinity St David
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Was Thatcherism Just about Neo-Liberalism? Exploring the Criminal Justice System since the 1980s.
Stephen Farrall, University of Sheffield
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Commentator: Daisy Payling, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
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Format
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In order to maximise the time available for discussion at the conference we intend to pre-circulate papers (c.2,000-3,000 words) to all participants, and to limit the presentation time allotted for each paper to 10 minutes.
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To ensure that everyone has time to read them, papers must be submitted for circulation by 11 August 2017.
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The conference is now full, and so we are unfortunately unable to accept any more requests to attend.
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Location​
University College London
Gower Street
Bloomsbury
London
WC1E 6BT
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