Neoliberal failures and the managerial takeover of governance

The history of neoliberalism is a messy attempt to turn theory into practice. Neoliberals struggled with their plans to implement flagship policies of monetarism, fiscal prudence, and public sector privatisation. Yet, inflation was still cut, welfare slashed, and the public sector ‘marketised’. Existing literature often interprets this as neoliberalism ‘failing-forward’, achieving policy goals by whatever means necessary and at great social cost. Often overlooked in this narrative is how far actually existing neoliberalism strayed from the original designs of public choice theorists and neoliberal ideologues. By examining the history of the Thatcher government's public sector reforms, we demonstrate how neoliberal plans for marketisation ran aground, forcing neoliberal governments to turn to an approach of Managed Competition that owed more to practices of postwar planning born in Cold War US than neoliberal theory. Rather than impose a market-like transformation of the public sector, Managed Competition systematically empowered top managers and turned governance into a managerial process; two developments that ran directly against core precepts of neoliberalism. The history of these early failures and adjustments provides vital insights into the politics of managerial governance in the neoliberal era.

Planning for War and Peace

After modernism transformed from rhetoric to reality through state-sponsored reconstruction, postwar planning brought new literary formulations of the dystopian. By absorbing the conventions of planning genres into their own work, John Betjeman, George Orwell, and Evelyn Waugh turned those genres against themselves: they portray a dehumanization perpetrated by the architecture that had been billed as the new “humanism” for the postwar world. Betjeman relied on parody in his poetry and anti-planning films, whereas Orwell and Waugh—despite their vast political differences—both envisioned a Britain that was less democratic in the wake of Labour Party–led reform. Through their counter-representations of the postwar future, they show the technocratic state and modernist functionalism to be fundamentally irrational; planning for peace may instead be planning for more war.

Iraq

This chapter explores postwar planning for Iraq using a similar approach to that used in Chapters 1 and 2. Specifically, it addresses how postwar planning for Iraq unfolded from the 1990s through May 2003, how we handled the planning tasks, and finally, why we conducted the planning so poorly. In particular it explores how the unresolved tension between promoting democracy and a rapid withdrawal helped derail the postwar approach. The U.S. did not develop a cohesive strategy to address the underlying trade-offs, so the Iraq planning was at odds with itself. This helped give rise to incompatible goals, a flourishing of governmental infighting, and a general sense of confusion that squandered our key window of opportunity. This chapter illustrates how we might have made smarter choices in Iraq, and probably attained a better outcome.

Kosovo

This chapter explores how Kosovo planning took shape from August 1998 through June 1999, how we performed the three postwar planning tasks, and finally, why we were able to tackle these tasks reasonably well. Of the four cases in this book, Kosovo is the only one that could arguably be called a partial success, and it shows how the U.S. can in fact get postwar planning mostly “right.” Motivated by tough lessons learned in nation-building, the Clinton administration undertook rigorous planning for Kosovo’s difficult postwar landscape. This chapter describes how the Clinton team resisted the allure of self-delusion, and crafted a realistic plan that acknowledged the difficulties ahead.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the following puzzle: why does the most powerful nation in the world achieve triumphant military victories, but botch nearly everything that comes next? In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, our military achieved smashing success on the battlefield, but not long after we popped the champagne, things went horribly wrong. This chapter begins to put these wars into a broader context by weaving them into a larger story. It outlines the tension between fostering democracy and seeking to withdraw as quickly as possible. It also highlights the pathologies that contribute to the problem, along with the three postwar planning tasks that can help us surmount the obstacles.

Libya

This chapter delves into how postwar planning unfolded during the Libya conflict from March to October 2011. It also explores how the Obama administration handled the tasks of postwar planning, as well as why it conducted the planning so poorly. The chapter highlights how it was unclear whether the conflict was being waged for humanitarian purposes, or to topple Qaddafi (or both), as our intended end game remained exceedingly vague. The U.S. sought to defer tough postwar issues to actors that had questionable legitimacy, capacity, or commitment – yet still mistakenly believed this could somehow give rise to a democratic Libya. This chapter illustrates how wishful thinking and poor planning helped foster ideal conditions for chaos in post-Qaddafi Libya.

Afghanistan

This chapter delves into how Afghanistan postwar planning unfolded from September 2001 through March 2002. It does so by relying on a similar approach to that used in Chapter 1 – by analyzing the postwar planning that took place, how the Bush administration grappled with the three fundamental tasks, and why the planning unfolded in this way. While the Afghanistan planning had a few positive attributes, on the whole it had serious deficiencies and sidestepped crucial trade-offs. This wobbly foundation made a hard situation even harder, and increased the odds of a precarious outcome. A look at each of these aspects helps shed light on our troubled planning for postwar Afghanistan, why we came up short, and how we might have done better.

Invitation to Grosvenor Square

On appointment as US ambassador to the United Kingdom John Winant called for E. F. Penrose and Edith to join him as foreign service technical advisers on economic and social affairs. Edith continued to work on food issues, but also on international trade, capital movements, migration, and changes in industrial distribution. E. F. Penrose was involved with a network of economists, including Keynes, James Meade, Lionel Robbins, Austin Robinson in London, Harry Dexter White, Morgenthau, and others in the USA on wartime and postwar planning. Edith’s journal of wartorn London conveys the intensity of the time and reveals the development of her own thinking through prolific reading and thoughtful reflection on the conversations and preoccupations of those she came into contact with, including many prominent economists, diplomats, journalists, and politicians; particularly the varying visions of the postwar world.