11. Postliberalism in International Affairs

Building on Michel Foucault’s critical analyses of liberalism and neoliberalism, this chapter elaborates the concept of postliberalism as the epistemological if not ideological framework for contemporary global politics. It argues that postliberalism is a new truth regime that entails a new form of government(ality). Whereas liberalism arose in the late 18th century with the probabilistic and pragmatic empiricism of the human sciences and the critique of rationalist absolutism, neoliberalism introduced a social constructivist, relativist critique of liberalism’s naturalization of the market as an arbiter of effective government. Neoliberalism thus reoriented government towards the activist creation and stimulation of a market(ized) society and entrepreneurship of the self. It also made (self-)doubt and salutary crisis a tool of government. Concomitant to the financialization of the international economy and the securitization of international relations, postliberalism breaks with liberal probabilism and neoliberal constructivism, replacing them “plausibilistic” verisimilitude. Thriving in a context of incertitude, it makes crisis not the limit of government but its very essence.