Neoliberalism in Antipodean spaces and times : an introduction to the special theme issue

It is easy to tell simple stories about the past. The tag ‘Keynesian-Fordism’, for instance, brings to mind a period of post-war circumstances in the richer nations where the widespread achievement of rising incomes was secured through state management of demand, regimes of regulation and potent redistribution strategies. The present rarely sheds its complexity so readily. Yet, there is an almost irresistible temptation to tag the present, to stylise it, to contrast it with a simplified past and to render it understandable (see Sayer, 1989). Neoliberalism might be such a tag. This collection assesses the usefulness of the neoliberalism tag in circumscribing and understanding the major changes in Australia’s and New Zealand’s political economy over the last three decades and the consequences of these changes for cities and regions. The collection furthers the international debate over whether neoliberalism is a universal force, penetrating polities and social and economic settings. In other words: is neoliberalism so pervasive a thing that its geography can be grasped by an appreciation of (not much more than) the mediating role of its socio-spatial contexts