3rd Law & Political Science Conference, Lisbon

THE END OF THE NEW RIGHT POLICIES

AHMET ÖZALP

Abstract:

Studies about new-right generally start with the same sentence: in 1980s Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the USA executed policies named new right, in order to downsize the state and make it become more efficient. Why did they want to downsize the state and what policies did they practice? According to new right ideology, responsibility of the economic crisis in 1970s belonged to the ineffective welfare state, which turned into a large, bulky and hierarchical structure. State’s increasing functions also expanded its economic, social and political function areas, and included these in the state domination. New-right thinkers regarded the state to act as a direct producer in the economic area, or its intervention to economy, as a problem preventing competition, novelty and productivity. From a social point of view, by undertaking the topics that are within the area of responsibility of individuals, the state played the role of a caregiver and thus eroded the moral values of the individuals. The political reflection of this situation was a political environment, in which organized organizations had a voice, participation came to the forefront while private space or negative freedom including individual rights and freedoms are depreciated, and liberal democracy eroded. Hayek’s political thesis named “Road to Serfdom”, which was written in 1944 against the tendency of “totalitarianism”, was widely accepted. New-right policies aimed to downsize the state within the framework of criticisms against the state. Privatization aimed to reduce the state's economic activity area in favor of the free market, localization aimed to transfer the authorities of the central government to the local administrations, and deregulation aimed to restructure hierarchical and cumbersome bureaucracy. However, today generalization of these policies under the name of reforms by international institutions such as IMF and the World Bank in a rapid way cause serious problems. Announcing “The End of History”, Fukuyama necessitates “State Building” in order to remove the institutional capacity weakness caused by policies, which were executed without much consideration. Many global problems such as poverty, immigration, regional conflicts, global climate change and etc. caused a “Major Disappointment” as mentioned by Stiglitz. The topic of this study includes practices and conclusions caused by new right policies. At the moment, all of the states, either developed, developing or less developed, confront the failed-state status at a certain level.

Keywords: Liberalism, social state, New right

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