Managerialism is often depicted as a key practice of neoliberalism yet relatively little has been written by scholars of neoliberalism about the actual relationship between managerialism and neoliberalism. Usually subsumed under a functional reading of neoliberalism, managerialism has too often been understood simply as a means for neoliberal ends (i.e. to promote market rule or competition). This paper challenges this perspective on the grounds that it conflates practices that stem from two different historical lineages. As we show, managerial governance not only has a very different history than neoliberal theory, but it also rests on different principles. Its development can be traced back to the US defence sector in the 1950s and the pivotal role of the RAND corporation. On the basis of this historical perspective, we argue for the need to analyse managerialism on its own terms and make the case for considering the rise of managerial science as a paradigmatic shift in governance. In doing so, we show how managerial governance represented a radical rupture from previous management practices and show how it profoundly reshaped how we have come to understand governance.
This article focuses on the central position of sovereign debt securities in the financial system to challenge existing accounts about the 1986 'Big Bang' deregulation of the City of London's securities market. The reforms are often cast as an iconic moment of neoliberal deregulation and a key episode in the globalisation of financial markets. Such accounts stress that the state played an active role constructing the reforms and upholding the global market relations they produced, yet they remain unclear about the state's direct interest in pursuing financial market liberalisation. The article contends that domestic concerns over sovereign debt management were central to the state's pursuit of regulatory change. The Big Bang reforms greatly expanded the size and liquidity of the market for British sovereign debt. This empowered the state, improving its capacity to conduct monetary policy and to raise finance on better terms. In doing so the article demonstrates the necessity of examining sovereign debt management in order to specify the state's role in the construction of financial globalisation.
This paper focuses on the history of financialised management and its connections to shareholder value which is often viewed as undermining patient strategies of investments. We argue that the rise of financialised management has in fact a long history that goes back to the conglomerate movement in 1960s America. As we show, the conglomerates pioneered the use of financial markets as a baseline for strategy, and the emphasis on financial transactions as an engine for growth. They developed key techniques-high leverage, share-price maximisation, accounting manipulation-that later came to be associated with managerial strategies of the shareholder value era. This legacy has important implications for how we think about patient capital. It challenges the idea that patient capital consists foremost in shielding non-financial companies from capital markets and highlights the central role of management too often neglected in these debates.
Critical macro-finance (CMF) has become an influential avenue of research aimed at shedding light on how the global payments system is governed. In the introduction to this special forum on CMF, we explore three main themes: (1) the intellectual lineage of CMF and its relation to financialisation studies; (2) the policy relevance of CMF; and (3) its ‘critical’ position.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.