The most ostensibly radical response to the crisis in development theory has been to reject outright the idea of development. Theories of post-development argue that all ideas of development imply the exercise of power over subject peoples in the so-called Third World. Some writers argue that the idea of development therefore constitutes a new form of colonialism. This article questions such views, by suggesting that not all theories of development can be tarred with the same brush. Post-development theory is guilty of homogenising the idea of development, thereby conflating all theories of development with the outmoded (and long discredited) theory of modernisation. Moreover, post-development theory is reluctant to suggest concrete political alternatives, arguing the post-structuralist position that to do so implies 'capture' by the development discourse. But this view similarly homogenises the development discourse, and leads to an alternative politics that uncritically celebrates resistance without analysing its differing political implications. When more concrete alternatives are suggested (as for example by ecofeminism), the result is an uncritical, romantic celebration of the local which can have reactionary political implications. Finally, an alternative, dialectical approach is suggested, which seeks to combine deconstruction with reconstruction, and which stresses the contradictory unity of development.

Neoliberalism is often sharply contrasted with collectivist ideologies, including conservatism and fascism as well as socialism. This paper challenges such a characterization as too one-sided, focusing on neoliberalism in the context of ‘crises’ of liberal modernity, highlighting significant areas of overlap with authoritarian conservative and neo-fascist critiques of the rise of ‘mass democracy’ in the 1930s, and the common project to resist the politicization of the market economy and constitutional order. This project was applied and adapted in the post-1945 context, and specifically the second crisis of liberal modernity in the 1960s and 1970s, which turned to insights from the Chicago School to support economic technocracy over democracy. It was in this context that neoliberals developed either a more explicit authoritarianism in order to resist the demands of democracy, or the reconstruction of governance according to market principles, both designed to ‘de-democratize’ the liberal democratic political order.

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This article examines the populist turn through the lens of changing social policy by relating this to the question of whether or not conservative and far‐right populism represent a break from, or a new mutation of, neoliberalism. Does this shift represent a conservative Polanyian double movement, or a mutation and extension of neoliberalism? This question is examined through a brief account of neoliberalism's failures, both before and after 2008, and how conservative populism challenged it, particularly around the question of liberal social policy. In then defining and discussing neoliberalism, the article shows how conservative populism in some respects challenges it, through its focus on re‐politicization in the face of technocratic and economistic de‐politicization and disenchantment. But the article then demonstrates important similarities and continuities in both neoliberal theory and populist practice.

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