Configuration of Subjectivities and the Application of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Medellin, Colombia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the response of the authors and the efforts to update this piece. However, several critical issues remain unaddressed from my comments. And by unaddressed, I mean more or less ignored. This is unacceptable. 

First, the authors still don’t seem to be able to specify the distinction between neoliberal values and what we might call simply classic capitalist bourgeois values. There is no definition of neoliberalism. This matters in a number or ways. First, because the authors talk about the culture of “merit” like it’s somehow a unique neoliberal thing. But this simply isn’t true. Tocqueville talks about the culture of merit in the old settler colonial mindset of revolutionary United States. This is a problem for the paper. Isn’t ordinary neoliberalism already an “instrumental rationality”? (P. 2). There is simply no effort to situate neoliberal theory in the historic development of bourgeois political economy. Second, because the authors rely heavily on the idea of authoritarianism, but they don’t explain what they mean. I simply can’t understand why the authors can’t state a)., what is new or significant about neoliberalism that wasn’t already there in bourgeois capitalist society, and b)., what is new about authoritarian neoliberalism that wasn’t already there in regular or vanilla neoliberalism.  Are we saying regular neoliberalism was somehow democratic? That seems to be the implication. But of course … it wasn’t. It wasn’t democratic at all. That’s kind of the point! 

Second, the introduction still does not function as an introduction. There is no definition of neoliberalism and therefore there is no (and, logically, nor therefore could there be) explication of the stakes of the piece. Moreover, the introduction is way too long and smushes together lengthy empirical details along with discussions of Wendy Brown and Quinn Slobodian. It’s too long and it's too confusing. As I noted in my previous commentary, much of the content in the intro belongs in the subsequent sections. Another issue is the lack of argumentative rigor. Consider for example Page 2, where the author/s claim there was some sort of contradiction introduced because of “opposing rationales” regarding the role of the state and the economy, in neoliberal theory. Well, what was the contradiction? It’s not explained properly. There’s a vague implication that it was to do with a later introduction of inadequate welfare policies. But if that’s the case, doesn’t the fact that they were inadequate mean in fact that there was no contradiction at all? There are clearer ways to make this point.  

What is neoliberalism? What is authoritarianism? What is ultra-capitalism? These terms get used casually, with no elaboration. What literary or theoretical debates are being referred to here? They cite Wendy Brown a little bit, but Brown has clear answers to the question of the distinction between regular neoliberalism and authoritarian neoliberalism, no? Well, maybe we could cite her explanation of that distinction, here? And while I very much appreciate the use of Quinn Slobodian in this draft (he is precisely the expert to turn to here), the novelty of the far right neoliberalism that Slobodian describes cannot be grasped in this paper without first adequately addressing the genealogy and nature of neoliberalism itself. Without first having some sort of proper definition and discussion of the novelty of what we might call “ordinary” neoliberalism, the discussion of Slobodian makes no sense. 

On page 3 “libertarianism” is invoked as the main issue, along with neoconservatism, and “ultra-right-wing” ideology. But these are all intellectually distinct projects. The former advocates a conservative version of classic bourgeois rights. The latter is a social engineering project, originally advocated by folks like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that relies on markets (that was opposed to racial justice programs). The authors need to use these terms with much, much more precision.  

Finally, there remains (Page 4) this strangely imprecise idea that ordinary everyday subjectivity is on the line. Are we really arguing that there are complex Rothbardian racist subjectivities being manufactured ‘en masse’ by authoritarian neoliberal assemblages? These seems a total stretch of imagination. I could possibly be persuaded that elites might have these views. But ordinary working class folks? No. And by the way, when Slobodian invokes these genealogies, his purpose is to explain the stakes of these as ELITE subjectivities, not as the basis for the manufacture of mass ordinary everyday subjectivities.   

My feeling is that the entire first section of the paper could be deleted. It doesn’t read as anything other than vague throat clearing. The real paper starts in Section 2. The stuff on Mouffe and the end of history is much more interesting, and the paper seems to be much more about this question of post-politics than anything else. I would delete the whole first section, and then write a short first section of 1-2 pages max, stating the outline of the paper and why and how it deals with the puzzle of post-political conservatism in Columbia. I would also use the saved space from deleting section 1 to create a whole new section based on political economy of the current Columbian cultural context. (This paper is supposed to be about Columbia, but it actually doesn’t say much about it). I think such an edit would be interesting, and powerful. If you want a model for how this can be done, kindly see Nicholas Kiersey’s article “Retail Therapy in the Dragon’s Den”:

Nicholas J. Kiersey (2014) “Retail Therapy in the Dragon's Den”: Neoliberalism and Affective Labour in the Popular Culture of Ireland's Financial Crisis, Global Society, 28:3, 356-374,  

While this article is about Ireland, not Columbia, it's a good model for how we can study the production of neoliberal subjectivity at work in ordinary, everyday life 

Moving along from Section 2, there is a terrible lack of attention to the comments I raised in the last draft. So those old concrete problems also remain. Namely, what is the point of the interviews? What are we hoping to achieve by interviewing just a handful of people? How do they shine light on post-politics? 

The conclusion says “typical of a neoliberal context” — but haven’t we agreed by now the paper is about the populist right? Again, it's like the authors don’t think there is any difference between Clintonian neoliberal post-politics and Trumpist post-neoliberal anti-politics. But there obviously is a lot to unpack here. Read Hochuli et al’s “end of the end of history” for example. Or Peter Mair. 

I recommend that this article be rejected and completely rewritten. 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Needs some work. Still a lot of awkward grammar. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I hope this message finds you well.

We have received your comments and suggestions to improve our article.  Taking into account your comments we make the following annotations:

1. About the size of the introduction: we have edited the text, we have reorganized it and it has been reduced by approximately 1,500 words and a little more than two pages, focusing the first part on the rationale and contextualization of the problem and then move to a rationale of authoritarian neoliberalism and its relationship with neoconservatism in the political projects of the so-called ‘new rightists’. The task has been more complex to the extent that, as will be seen in the following point, we decided to incorporate references to several of the authors recommended in the evaluation, which initially implied a greater number of words and an increase in the size of the text. We then proceeded to reorganize, synthesize and edit in order to make an introduction of reasonable size. This process implied a reordering of paragraphs and changes in the wording of the text, especially in the first part. What was addressed in the first revision is highlighted in green and what was changed in the second revision is highlighted in fuchsia.
2. In terms of the conceptual, we have read and incorporated into the text several of the suggested authors: Bruff (2014); Bruff & Tansel (2019); Clua-Losada (2019), Clua-Losada & Ribera-Almandoz (2017), Abrahamsen et al. (2024) (which includes Michael Collins), and Slobodian (2019). This has allowed us, on the one hand, to strengthen the argumentation we have developed by deepening our argumentation, but, at the same time, to clarify, punctuate, and specify it. We are grateful for the suggestions because we think they have strengthened our article.
3. Regarding including a synthesis of the text in the introduction, we thought that this function was fulfilled by the summary, and, given the recommendation not to make the introduction so long, we decided, after writing it, to eliminate it, because we realized that it was very similar to the summary we already had.
4. We have included several paragraphs that complement elements on the Colombian context, which allow us to establish clearer links between the argumentation around the authoritarian neoliberal model in the global context, with what has happened in Colombia in recent decades.

In this way, we thank you again for your comments, and hope that these adjustments have allowed us to clarify some aspects more clearly and strengthen others.

 

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Much improved version - particularly the way it is now much more embedded in exoating literature: strengthening the piece in terms of its contribution to that literature. Also significant improvement on presentation of the results.

Author Response

Thank you for your time and support on the manuscript.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

There are some good things going on in this piece. But it is not ready for publication. And, in my view, it needs extensive revision. Overall, it is simply not clear how the interviews connect with the theory. The author makes several unsubstantiated theoretical claims (i.e., a poor definition of neoconservatism) in order to craft some theoretical archetypes, and then tries to shoe horn the interview results into those archetypes. The result is a bit of a mess. 

The point about the Latin American paradox on Page 1 is interesting. But why does this necessarily require us to say this is part of a conservative neoliberalism? Isn’t that a viewpoint regular neoliberals would maintain? Why? Why not? Are regular neoliberals more socially tolerant, somehow? The author can’t just assume the reader knows why they are making this distinction. 

Is all authoritarian neoliberalism (which the author brings up on page Page 3) necessarily ideologically conservative? I don’t think so. Indeed, in the debates over authoritarian neoliberalism (i.e., work by David Bailey, Ian Bruff, Monica Clua-Losada), the claim is not at all that neoliberalism has become ideologically more conservative. The claim instead is that regular neoliberalism itself has become more structurally anti-democratic (which is not the same thing). 

The author seems to think there is something to be gained by talking about a merger of neoconservativism and neoliberalism. But they are not really clear what they mean by neoconservatism. How is it different genealogically to neoliberalism? Francis Fukuyama for example was a neoconservative for a long time. How do his ideas differ from those of neoliberalism? What exactly is paleoconservatism? (Page 6). It’s not clear to me in the piece how the author wants me to understand these terms, or their significance. The Wendy Brown reference on Page 7 seems a bit too vague and hand waving. Why should we believe her that “the paradox” can be resolved by thinking of both tendencies in terms of the defense of the family? (Page 7). I can believe maybe this applies to neoconservatism. But I have been a scholar of neoliberalism for most of my academic career, and the idea that neoliberalism wants to defend the family seems a real stretch to me. So, more clarity is needed on the debates around this question of the family. On conservatism, the author might want to look into the work of Corey Robin and also Michael Williams & Rita Abrahamsen, to get some clarity. On different strains of neoliberalism, the author I think would strongly benefit from reading Quinn Slobodian, who explains the Rothbardist genealogy of right neoliberalism, and how its values run contrary to more libertarian neoliberalism. 

The author claims “Conservative neoliberal subjectivity is being configured as a response to the new needs and forms of capital accumulation on a global scale.” But I think this is a rather hyperbolic claim. Because this moment we are living in, which some are calling “the end of the end of history,” is as much a post-ideological moment as anything else. Do we really need to explain this era of Trump etc as neoconservative? Some would simply say it was more a form of anti-politics, or a populist backlash against three decades of neoliberal managerialism. But populism isn’t necessarily conservative. It can also be leftist. Good sources here include Adam Curtis’s documentary, HyperNormalization, the book “the end of the end of history” by Hochuli et al., the book “ruling the void” by Peter Mair, and the book Capitalist Realism, by Mark Fisher. 

At the end of the day, the interviews with the inhabitants of Medellín are interesting. But I think the author is perhaps forcing the data into conservative archetypes when it is not really clear that they are conservative archetypes. They might just be capitalist realist archetypes, symptomatic of the general sense of powerlessness even the professional managerial class (PMC) feels in late stage capitalism. When we speak of “individual merit,” after all, is that not also a value that middle class college educated liberals extol, when they get in debates about who should or shouldn’t be cancelled because of their “privilege”? 

In the end, saying all the is somehow specifically conservative neoliberalism as opposed to regular neoliberalism just doesn’t make much sense to me. “Merit and goodness, sacrifice and success” are not uniquely conservative ideals. And regular neoliberalism also denies “the diversity of conditions according to the positions and social capitals of individuals” (p. 17). 

In terms of structure, the introduction is way too long. Also, it is structurally confused and it doesn’t function properly as an introduction. To fix this, I would suggest breaking this section in two and making the first part a very short 2-3 page summary of the overall argument, method, and conclusions. Then the rest could be a considered an elaboration of the theoretical problem the author is trying to address (like, say, a literature review). But, as is, the section is far too long. 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is good. Indeed, in many respects the quality of the composition at a very high standard. But there are some composition and style issues which, to my mind, suggest the author(s) is not a native English speaker. Generally, I would encourage the authors to go thru the whole document carefully, for typos. For example, on Page 17 there is a sentence that starts “reason why…” But this is not a grammatically a complete sentence. Then, on Page 18, there is another strange sentence that begins with “In addition to not understanding,” which is also grammatically incomplete. Also, on page 19 conservatism is referred to as a “place of identity.” But this idea of conservatism as a physical place or geographical site doesn’t quite make sense in english, in my opinion, because an ideology cannot be a place. 

As a matter of style, I would also kindly suggest that some alternative method be fond for representing quotations from the subjects. In Section 3, there are numerous moments where it is very hard to tell who is speaking. The author? Or the interviewee? (Page 11, 12, etc.). At the least, I would want to see in-line quotes demarcated with quotation marks, and the bigger quotes clearly shown using block quote formatting. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The configuration of subjectivities and the application of neoliberal economic policies in Medellin, Colombia

This paper seeks to analyse the dynamics behind the (re)production of the self under neoliberalism, with a case study of Medellin Colombia. This is an interesting and valuable topic to discuss but there is just too much wrong with this paper to recommend publication. There are three main critiques that I have:

1)    The whole argument never defines its terms, making it very difficult to discern the specific and precise claims the paper is making, and where this fits into current debates in the literature. For example, ideology is used as a central concept, but is never defined and explored. This is important, as it means different things to different traditions. Look to the work of Andrea Sau for example. Furthermore, subjects and the self are never really explored beyond a brief engagement with Kierkegaard (p5). Given the centrality of this to your discussion, a more sophisticated understanding regarding the (re)constitution of the self would be highly advantageous
2)    The introduction is very long, and never manages the all the jobs of an actual introduction. Instead, the long opening section covers a lot of ground without much precision. Exactly what debates are you contributing to? In what way are you contributing to them? There are some isolated examples of attempting this, but without any systemic attempt to map out for the reader what the article is really attempting to do.
3)    The results section is largely a reproduction of elements of interview transcripts. I would expect more analysis here, and thematic study that hermeneutic enquiry usually insists upon. Instead, the article limits itself to a simple reproduction of much of the data, devoid of analysis and how it fits into the first part of the paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article analyses an interesting research topic and is part of the most recent studies on the effects of the dynamics of neo-liberalism in current societies. These studies are set in the Colombian context, specifically in the city of Medellin, one of the country's main economic capitals. The article focuses on the frame of the configuration of subjectivities and the application of neoliberal economic policies in Medellín and supports this analysis through a qualitative methodology based on a semi-structured interviews. From a stylistic point of view, the article presents cohesion and coherence in all its parts, the language used is clear and the topic is presented in a way that can be understood even by a non-expert audience. Research results are argued and linked to the final conclusions highlighting the strong entrenchment of neo-liberal subjectivities, the participants’ emphasis on issues of security and social order and the delegitimisation of redistributive socio-economic policies. To increase the value of the search results, it is recommended to:

1. specify the research objective in the Abstract
2. specify more clearly in the final part of the Introduction the research question and/or research hypothesis
3. the hermeneutic-interpretive approach and narrative style that characterise the presentation of result items needs to be recast more effectively. In this sense, the author(s) could insert summary tables/graphs within the respective paragraphs or in the final conclusions (in the latter case to better correlate results and demonstration of the hypothesis and objective)