Neo-liberalism and Ordoliberalism – One or Two Critiques? An Introduction

This special issue addresses principally, but not exclusively, two themes: first, the differences and similarities between two stylised and separable, but not separate, class policies – that of Anglo-American neo-liberalism and German-Austrian ordoliberalism; and second, whether or not European Union Treaties and actual policies have been driven by German-Austrian ordoliberal principles. By way of examining these two themes, the contributions also tackle other important questions and puzzles, such as the wider impacts of those policies on society, or the tensions created between theoretical postulates and the practical implementation of them, or why neo-liberalism proved to be so resilient after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. They also endeavour to place these discussions in wider, global contexts. Our introduction provides a comprehensive summary of the arguments developed by the contributors and poses some further questions setting out a new research agenda in the field of critical sociological and economic studies.