Abstract
This article is about how the governmentality critique of top-down governance
feeds into current interventionary policy thinking. Drawing on the Merida Initiative, a US–Mexican security cooperation agreement signed in 2007, the article brings out how neoliberal civil society discourse continuously deconstructs the normative and analytical assumptions, categories, and concepts of modern liberal-universalism. In the Merida Initiative, civil society representatives were repeatedly delegitimized for being part of a detached internationalized NGO bubble. The goal was to enable idiosyncratic local
knowledge-power to unfold its creative governing potential unencumbered by the oppressive and counterproductive reductions and exclusions of liberal-universal episteme. In this way, policy thinking actually coincides with the governmentality critique of standardized knowledge and top-down imposition. One of the negative implications is that international policy-makers lose their ability to arbitrate according to fixed normative standards.
feeds into current interventionary policy thinking. Drawing on the Merida Initiative, a US–Mexican security cooperation agreement signed in 2007, the article brings out how neoliberal civil society discourse continuously deconstructs the normative and analytical assumptions, categories, and concepts of modern liberal-universalism. In the Merida Initiative, civil society representatives were repeatedly delegitimized for being part of a detached internationalized NGO bubble. The goal was to enable idiosyncratic local
knowledge-power to unfold its creative governing potential unencumbered by the oppressive and counterproductive reductions and exclusions of liberal-universal episteme. In this way, policy thinking actually coincides with the governmentality critique of standardized knowledge and top-down imposition. One of the negative implications is that international policy-makers lose their ability to arbitrate according to fixed normative standards.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 896-910 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Globalizations |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 10 Feb 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Keywords
- Neo-liberalism
- Epistemology
- Critique
- Governmentality
- Civil society
- Intervention
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Peter Finkenbusch
- FAH School of Humanities - Lecturer in International Relations
Person: Teaching and Research