Neoliberal State and Its Challenges

Description

Perhaps, the most fundamental and the overarching challenge to neoliberal state relates to establishing its legitimacy and perpetuating its hegemony. While neoliberal state with its inherent and distinctive class-bias produces extreme inequality almost in all fronts, still it attempts at pretending to be benevolent and pro-poor. Moreover, pretentious benevolence of neoliberal state often turns out to be self-limiting due to its unbridled obsession with growth, which characteristically accompanies dispossession of vast majority of people outweighing all its benevolent gestures. Thes innate contradictions naturally generate myriad frictions and tensions challenging its legitimacy and hegemony.

The collection of papers in this volume offers insights to some of the pressing issues of contemporary neoliberal statehood and statecraft, both theoretical and practical. The book presents views about the state in the context of post-colonial era, its crises in governance including various manifestations of ‘internal colonialism’ and subsequent contestations, its crises in maintaining the legitimacy and concomitant process of militarization, relations and frictions amongst the state, market and ‘civil society’ and attendant class configurations.

Bhupen Sarmahis Professor and Director OKD Institute of Social Change and Development, Guwahati. His current research interest includes political econmy of development, autonomy and ethnicity and agrarian relations.

Joydeep Baruahis Assistant Professor at OKD Institute of Social Change and Development, Guwahati. His current research interest includes regional development, political economy, human development and multi-dimensional deprivation.