Austerity Neoliberalism

Austerity does not necessarily have to be neoliberal and neoliberalism does not have any necessary connection to austerity. But taken together they represent a toxic combination, one that attacks us body and soul

Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government

Does it matter for municipal policy which party controls the mayorship in municipal government? The bulk of the existing evidence says no. But there are a variety of theoretical reasons to believe that mayoral partisanship should affect municipal policy. We examine the impact of mayoral partisanship in nearly 1,000 elections in medium and large cities over the past 60 years. In contrast to previous work, we find that mayoral partisanship has a significant impact on the size of municipal government. Democratic mayors spend substantially more than Republican mayors. In order to pay for this spending, Democratic mayors issue substantially more debt than Republican mayors and pay more in interest. Our findings show that mayoral partisanship matters for city policy. Our findings add to a growing literature indicating that the constraints imposed on city policy making do not prevent public opinion and elections from having a meaningful impact on municipal policy

Feral Parents: austerity parenting under neoliberalism

Copyright 2012 The Author. This article explores the discourse of 'feral' parenting that emerged during and in the direct aftermath of the UK riots of 2011 from an austerity perspective. Despite the riots occurring amidst a global economic downturn, a diversification of Britain's political landscape and great social unrest, this discourse positioned the culpability for the riots on a class of 'feral' children borne of 'feral' parents. More precisely, this blame was centred upon the lone, working-class mother. The 'feral' parent discourse created these parents in opposition to the 'austere' parent citizen inscribed as the norm within the current economic climate. Whilst this vilification has a substantial history and draws upon pre-existing notions of value, this discourse was simultaneously imbued with contemporary meaning to aid novel socio-economic and political incentives under austerity. Through analysing news media and political rhetoric, I argue that austerity parenting is a significant component of neoliberal governmentality whereby social norms around parenting, marriage and employment are naturalised

Period Poverty Is Political!

Guest blog post.Over the past few years, the term ‘period poverty’ has been in the news a lot. It refers to how some people are unable to access or afford menstrual products..

Periods of Austerity: The emergence of “period poverty” in UK news media

Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. This article analyses the emergence of the discourse of period poverty in UK news media across a two-year period. Using thematic analysis and discourse analysis, I analyse three themes: the focus on the schoolgirl, the silencing of the austerity context and the preoccupation with products and public figures to solve the structural issue of period poverty. In doing so, I argue that period poverty has emerged in the cultural sphere due to three key, and intertwined, forces: the continued dismantling of the welfare state and individualising of poverty, an escalation of mainstream feminism and feminist activism around menstruation, as well as high-profile individuals (celebrities, MPs, royals etc) supporting period poverty as philanthropy. This article brings together literature on austerity media culture and mediations of mainstream feminism/s. It expands scholarship on austerity media culture by analysing how the novel discourse of period poverty continues to individualise poverty and justify the ongoing dismantling of the welfare state, and it furthers scholarship on mainstream feminism/s by examining how the discourse of period poverty connects mainstream feminism/s with austerity and class.Brunel Research Initiative and Enterprise Fund (Award Number: 1064)

The ‘stay-at-home’ mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism: Content analysis of UK news coverage

This article analyzes the construction in the UK media of the ‘stay-at-home mother’, a maternal figure who received increasing visibility during the recession and its aftermath. Based on a content analysis of UK national newspaper coverage of stay-at-home mothers (2008–2013), this article argues that the stay-at-home mother emerges from its press coverage as a neoliberal postfeminist subject. On the one hand, the coverage complicates claims about antifeminist backlash and women’s harking back to passive femininity. On the other hand, it fails significantly to undermine maternal femininity’s entanglement with neoliberalism, and reinforces the process described by McRobbie as ‘disarticulation’, by separating between middle-class mothers and working-class mothersLSE Seed Fun

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. Stand-up comedy has recently become a primary site where representations of pregnancy are increasingly prevalent. Yet little academic work focuses on pregnant stand-up comedians and their performances. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article examines the cultural work of pregnant stand-up comedy. Thematic analysis of pregnant stand-up comedy by Amy Schumer, Ellie Taylor and Ali Wong identifies three significant features characterising the performances: (1) Comedic Corporeality, Vulgarity and Ambiguity; (2) Breaking Silences through the ‘Unruly Expectant Mother’; and (3) Critiquing Maternity Inequality through Pregnant Stand-Up? We examine how pregnant stand-up comedy interacts with and disrupts dominant cultural pregnancy representations, illustrating how pregnancy functions simultaneously as comic content and critique in the performances. Such comic content and critique are characterised by complexity as ambivalence is central to pregnant stand-up comedy. We argue it is precisely such ambivalence that provides productive means to understand the cultural and theoretical significances of pregnant stand-up comedy.The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article