Among the most notable trends of the last several decades in the United States have been the rise of corporate power, the entrenchment of neoliberalism, the rise in inequality, along with discussions regarding the ‘culture wars’ and the phenomenon of polarization. The onset of the neoliberal era has been accompanied and facilitated by a decades-long marketing campaign propagating the consistent narrative of individualism over the collective, that government is the problem rather than a solution to problems, while associating freedom exclusively with the market. This thesis project draws on critical theory, Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, discourse, narrative and communications theory, along with some insights from social psychology to examine the discursive shifting of the political spectrum that has occurred over the last four decades and has helped to entrench market fundamentalism as a hegemonic common sense. The thesis pays particular attention to the weaponization of the word ‘liberal’ and how this strategy has affected the understanding of the political spectrum and how the centre is currently framed. The research design I use to interrogate this entails a qualitative content analysis of various media sources noting how ‘common sense’ populist discourse, such as terms like ‘liberal’, are utilized by Republican operatives and conservative commentators, as well as by the mainstream media and the general public. Using a multi-disciplinary theoretical approach and a methodological framework provided by Stone and Parker, I deconstruct and analyze the narrative that has been built up around neoliberalism and how it can serve to reinforce neoliberalism as a little-questioned hegemonic paradigm, often by-passing cognition. Neoliberal logics reject the political in terms of participatory democracy, while still requiring a strong state to stabilize the economic order. The resulting erosion of democracy augurs the possibility of right-wing authoritarianism, exacerbates inequality, and promotes a growth model that is unsustainable ecologically / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/12841 |
| Date | 08 April 2021 |
| Creators | Nascimento, Victor M. A. |
| Contributors | Garlick, Steve |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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