- Urban Restructuring and the Crisis: A Symposium with Neil Brenner, John Friedmann, Margit Mayer, Allen J. Scott, and Edward W. Soja. Critical Planning, Summer 2009, 35-59. Read the entire article in PDF format here.
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In a 2010 publication, Professor Mayer poses “some questions on Wacquant’s theorizing the neoliberal state”. An abstract of the article titled “Punishing the Poor” is posted below. (Please note: in order to read the full text, a subscription is required, i.e. the site needs to be accessed through a registered databank. Visit the JFKI library for further information.)
Punishing the Poor—a debate
Some questions on Wacquant’s theorizing the neoliberal state
While in broad agreement about the growing importance of workfare and punitive tendencies in contemporary politics, this article raises four questions about Wacquant’s model of a neoliberal state. Besides pointing out the fuzzy definition of the target group of punitive regulation, it questions whether penal containment is generalizable as ‘core’ of the neoliberal state. Third, it critiques the selective treatment of contemporary poverty policies (excluding a variety of, for example, activating, neoliberal policies), built on a skewed view of the transition from a supposedly generous ‘nanny state’ to a strict ‘daddy state’. Fourth, it challenges the claim of ‘overall fitness’ of punitive containment of urban marginality and the absence of agency and contradictions from the model.
[Mayer, M., „Punishing the Poor – a Debate. Some questions on Wacquant’s Theorizing the Neoliberal State,“ Theoretical Criminology vol. 14 no. 1, 2010, 93-103.]
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