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Labouring under neoliberalism: The Australian Labor government’s ideological constraint, 2007–2013

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Tim Battin
Tim Battin*
Affiliation:
University of New England, Australia
*
Tim Battin, Political and International Studies, School of Humanities, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. Email: tbattin@une.edu.au
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Abstract

When viewed against its ostensibly successful management of the global economic crisis between 2008 and 2013, growing electoral disenchantment with the Australian Labor Party government during that time defied standard explanations and calls for further analysis. A major reason for the party’s electoral loss in 2013 was arguably popular disappointment with its eschewal of social democratic principles. Notwithstanding some progressive measures initiated between 2008 and 2013, successive Australian Labor Party governments were constrained by neoliberal strictures, even when they chose to implement progressive policies. Whatever other reasons exist for its decline in popularity between 2007 and 2013, the Australian Labor Party’s unwillingness or inability to mark out a clear alternative to neoliberalism was fundamental. In making this case, this article uses the conceptual framework of ‘depoliticisation’, defined as the displacement of policy decisions from the sphere of democratic accountability and public debate, making them matters for regulation by technocratic experts operating according to supposed edicts of the market.

Keywords

A14B59DepoliticisationKeynesian political economyneoliberalismsocial democracy
Type
Workers and neoliberalism
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 146 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

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