The Civil Society of Authoritarian Neoliberalism

This article reconstructs the idea of civil society in neoliberal thought and policies, showing that it constitutes the central governing object of the latter, which aims to subjectify an individualized social body whose direction, therefore, takes on an authoritarian twist. The other side of the Strong State and the ordered economy is deproletarization, to put it in ordoliberal jargon. Following the conceptual traces left by Michel Foucault and Hermann Heller, the article reconstructs and analyzes the nexus between neoliberal governance of civil society by the market on the one hand and political authoritarianism on the other. Finally, it asks whether it is possible today to think of civil society as a space for questioning not only authoritarian liberalism but also capitalist society by reflecting on the politics of nouns and adjectives