Political Action in an Age of Neoliberal Austerity

In the United Kingdom, since the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, neoliberal governance has shifted the economy toward deregulated, privatised, competitive frameworks. Such socioeconomic patterning can be regarded as a value-laden, political undertaking upheld by socio-economic and legislative approaches which have profoundly affected political culture. Following the global financial crisis in 2008, and the election of the UK Conservative-led coalition government in 2010, austerity as an extension of older forms of neoliberal state governance has involved vast, long-term cuts to social spending and public services. It has also extended a political agenda requiring citizens to be independent, self-responsible, economically productive, and adaptable to economic instability. As this PhD project explores, austerity discourses and policies in the UK have been responsible for extensive social harm; and affect the socio-material conditions politically active people face; and extend to the rhetorical framing of political action.

The thesis takes a narrative inquiry approach based on 14 in-depth oral historical interviews with self-described left-wing activists, based across the South of Britain, and Wales. Political action is broadly defined here to encompass everyday manifestations of dissent, symbolic resistance, direct action and protest, mutual aid, counterculture, ways of being, and imagining alternative political futures. The lived experiences and critical reflexivity of politically active and dissenting people are central to my analysis. Through engagement with the oral historical narratives of my participants, my research traverses the socio-political, material, and legislative landscape of the UK since the 1980s with a focus on post-2010 austerity. I grapple with multi-dimensional conditions of neoliberal governance, legislative approaches, and political rhetoric that I maintain have altered the strategies, contingencies, and framing of political action.

My analysis aims to illuminate the diverse ways that political action currently plays out in the UK, and how the socio-political and affective conditions of austerity affect the strategies, ethos, and resources of politically active people. In developing conceptualisations of the neoliberal imperative and austerity as a political undertaking, I offer an interdisciplinary sociological analysis that acknowledges the difficulties faced by politically active people in the face of ongoing economic restructuring. Attending to the discrete ways that resistance can be embodied, I seek to contribute to political counter-narratives and affective discourses that resist neoliberal power and cast light on the political violence embedded in the austerity agenda in the UK and far beyond.