Subtopic Deep Dive
Neoliberalism History
Research Guide
What is Neoliberalism History?
Neoliberalism History examines the emergence and implementation of neoliberal policies in UK Thatcherism and US Reaganomics, emphasizing deregulation, privatization, and market-driven governance from the 1970s onward.
This subtopic traces ideological shifts toward free markets in the UK under Margaret Thatcher and the US under Ronald Reagan. Key studies analyze rising inequality (Kenworthy and Pontusson, 2005, 593 citations) and generational value changes (Grasso et al., 2017, 244 citations). Over 10 high-citation papers from 2005-2020 document socioeconomic impacts and policy diffusion.
Why It Matters
Neoliberalism History explains persistent inequality in UK and US economies, with Kenworthy and Pontusson (2005) showing market inequality rises in 1980s-1990s OECD data. Gray and Barford (2018, 391 citations) map UK austerity's uneven regional effects post-2010. Grasso et al. (2017) link Thatcher-era policies to right-authoritarian shifts in younger cohorts, informing current governance debates.
Key Research Challenges
Conceptual Stretching of Neoliberalism
John Clarke (2008, 274 citations) argues neoliberalism's promiscuity across theories limits analytical precision. This blurs distinctions between UK Thatcherism and US Reaganomics implementations. Resolving requires tighter ideological definitions.
Measuring Socioeconomic Impacts
Kenworthy and Pontusson (2005, 593 citations) use Luxembourg Income Study data for inequality trends, but causal links to policy remain debated. Gray and Barford (2018) highlight geographic variations in austerity effects. Standardized metrics across UK-US contexts are needed.
Ideological Diffusion Tracing
Haughton et al. (2013, 239 citations) examine soft spaces for neoliberal experimentation in planning. Bruff and Tansel (2018, 290 citations) address authoritarian variants' knowledge production. Tracking transatlantic policy transfers challenges archival gaps.
Essential Papers
Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution
Lars Cornelissen · 2015 · Contemporary Political Theory · 1.6K citations
Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries
Lane Kenworthy, Jonas Pontusson · 2005 · Perspectives on Politics · 593 citations
We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine household market inequality, redistribution, and the relationship between market inequality and redistribution in affluent OECD countries in ...
Audit Culture Revisited
Cris Shore, Susan Wright · 2015 · Current Anthropology · 437 citations
The spread of the principles and techniques of financial accounting into new systems for measuring, ranking, and auditing performance represents one of the most important and defining features of c...
The depths of the cuts: the uneven geography of local government austerity
Mia Gray, Anna Barford · 2018 · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 391 citations
Austerity, the sustained and widespread cuts to government budgets, has characterised Britain’s public policy since 2010. The local state has undergone substantial restructuring, driven by major ...
Authoritarian neoliberalism: trajectories of knowledge production and praxis
Ian Bruff, Cemal Burak Tansel · 2018 · Globalizations · 290 citations
This introduction to the special issue takes as its point of departure three<br/>centres of gravity that have shaped the study of neoliberalism but have also<br/>established barriers to further pro...
Living with/in and without neo-liberalism
John Clarke · 2008 · Focaal · 274 citations
This article explores some concerns about the concept of neo-liberalism, suggesting that it has been stretched too far to be productive as a critical analytical tool. Neo-liberalism suffers from pr...
Time to Care: Unpaid and underpaid care work and the global inequality crisis
Clare Coffey, Patricia Espinoza Revollo, Rowan Harvey et al. · 2020 · 269 citations
Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. This great divide is based on a flawed and sexist economi...
Reading Guide
Foundational Papers
Start with Kenworthy and Pontusson (2005, 593 citations) for inequality data baselines; Clarke (2008, 274 citations) critiques conceptual use; Hay (2010, 174 citations) on Anglo-liberal growth model demise.
Recent Advances
Cornelissen (2015, 1616 citations) on stealth revolution; Grasso et al. (2017, 244 citations) on Thatcher’s generational effects; Bruff and Tansel (2018, 290 citations) on authoritarian neoliberalism.
Core Methods
Luxembourg Income Study for redistribution (Kenworthy 2005); age-period-cohort models for socialization (Grasso 2017); geographic analysis of austerity (Gray 2018).
How PapersFlow Helps You Research Neoliberalism History
Discover & Search
Research Agent uses citationGraph on Kenworthy and Pontusson (2005) to map 593-citation network of inequality studies, then findSimilarPapers reveals UK-US parallels like Grasso et al. (2017). exaSearch queries 'Thatcherism Reaganomics inequality diffusion' across 250M+ OpenAlex papers for undiscovered works.
Analyze & Verify
Analysis Agent applies readPaperContent to Cornelissen (2015) for stealth revolution claims, then verifyResponse with CoVe cross-checks against Kenworthy data. runPythonAnalysis loads Luxembourg Income Study excerpts via pandas for inequality trend plots; GRADE scores evidence strength on redistribution politics.
Synthesize & Write
Synthesis Agent detects gaps in Thatcher generational impacts versus US data, flags contradictions in Clarke (2008) critiques. Writing Agent uses latexEditText for policy timeline revisions, latexSyncCitations integrates 10+ papers, latexCompile generates formatted review; exportMermaid diagrams UK-US neoliberal diffusion flows.
Use Cases
"Plot UK inequality trends from neoliberal reforms using 1980s-2010s data."
Research Agent → searchPapers 'Kenworthy Pontusson 2005' → Analysis Agent → runPythonAnalysis (pandas plot Luxembourg data) → matplotlib inequality graph output.
"Draft LaTeX section on Thatcherism's long-term value shifts with citations."
Research Agent → citationGraph 'Grasso 2017' → Synthesis → gap detection → Writing Agent → latexEditText + latexSyncCitations (244-cite paper) + latexCompile → camera-ready section PDF.
"Find GitHub repos analyzing Reaganomics inequality models."
Research Agent → searchPapers 'neoliberalism US inequality' → Code Discovery → paperExtractUrls → paperFindGithubRepo → githubRepoInspect → repo code + replication notebooks.
Automated Workflows
Deep Research workflow scans 50+ neoliberalism papers via searchPapers chains, outputs structured report on UK-US austerity (Gray 2018). DeepScan's 7-step analysis verifies Cornelissen (2015) claims with CoVe checkpoints and Python stats on citations. Theorizer generates hypotheses on authoritarian neoliberalism trajectories from Bruff (2018) literature synthesis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What defines Neoliberalism History?
It historicizes policy shifts in UK Thatcherism and US Reaganomics, focusing on deregulation and marketization (Cornelissen, 2015).
What methods analyze neoliberal impacts?
Age-period-cohort analysis tracks value changes (Grasso et al., 2017); Luxembourg Income Study data measures inequality (Kenworthy and Pontusson, 2005).
What are key papers?
Foundational: Kenworthy and Pontusson (2005, 593 citations); recent: Gray and Barford (2018, 391 citations) on UK austerity geography.
What open problems exist?
Conceptual promiscuity of neoliberalism (Clarke, 2008); tracing authoritarian variants (Bruff and Tansel, 2018); standardizing UK-US inequality metrics.
Research Political and Economic history of UK and US with AI
PapersFlow provides specialized AI tools for your field researchers. Here are the most relevant for this topic:
AI Literature Review
Automate paper discovery and synthesis across 474M+ papers
Deep Research Reports
Multi-source evidence synthesis with counter-evidence
Paper Summarizer
Get structured summaries of any paper in seconds
AI Academic Writing
Write research papers with AI assistance and LaTeX support
Start Researching Neoliberalism History with AI
Search 474M+ papers, run AI-powered literature reviews, and write with integrated citations — all in one workspace.