Comment on the neo-liberal perspective of the state.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 neo-liberalism = revival of 19th-c economic liberalism → market over state
Route 2 late-1970s welfare-state crisis → “market fundamentalism” → roll back the state
individual + market primacy → Hayek (planning → lost liberty; social justice a “mirage”) → Nozick (minimal night-watchman) → Thatcher’s TINA → privatisation / deregulation / austerity → Thatcherism, Reaganism, LPG 1991
2008 crisis → Polanyi (markets need state) → Stiglitz “failed ideology”
Route 1 efficiency real, but welfare / equality costs → minimal state utopian
Route 2 markets cannot function without the state they seek to shrink
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Theories of the State — 9 questions in the Vault.
- What is the Marxist and liberal approach towards the state? On what grounds are the theoretical differences between them premised? Explain.
- Comment on the pluralist theory of the state in about 150 words.
- Examine the liberal theory of the State in contemporary politics.
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.