Book Review: Political Theory: Immigration and the Constraints of Justice: Between Open Borders and Absolute Sovereignty
| Author | Jonathan Seglow |
| Published date | 01 January 2012 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9302.2011.00250_21.x |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
nothing to suggest that this will necessarily continue to
be the dollar. Moving to the role of character, Pack
offers a timely critique of managers rooted in Aristotle,
Smith and Marx, noting that the pursuit of a narrowly
defined self-interest actually does little to serve the
wider economic interest. This leads to a consideration
of the role of government,again drawing on the book’s
three subjects, where Pack suggests that the require-
ment of administrative responses to current problems
does not suggest the smaller state often regarded as
axiomatic by (self-avowed) followers of Smith; rather
what is required is more socially focused governance.
This book would make an excellent foundation for a
focused history of political economic thought Masters
course; working through in detail the three analysts’
primary work (establishing close reading skills) fol-
lowed by an application of the ideas informed by the
final section. However, as it is only available in hard-
back it is likely to be prohibitively expensive for most
postgraduate cohorts. Nevertheless I can thoroughly
recommend this book for its interest to political econo-
mists and as an example of how history of economic
thought can be made clearly and easily relevant to
contemporary political economists.
Christopher May
(Lancaster University)
Constructions of Neoliberal Reason by Jamie
Peck. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 301pp.,
£25.00, ISBN 978 0 19 958057 6
Perennially our search for the constitutive logic of a
phenomenon or process greatly diminishes with its
gradual normalisation. Neo-liberalism is no exception
in this regard. The more we tend to internalise the
‘inevitability’ of the neo-liberal order, the less we seek
to explore its nuts and bolts. However,there are some
rigorous academic endeavours to the contrary, such
as Alasdair Robert’s The Logic of Discipline: Global
Capitalism and Architecture of Government (2010) and
Nick Couldry’s Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics
after Neoliberalism (2010). The book under review is a
welcome addition to these exceptional ventures.
Constructions of Neoliberal Reason reveals from various
vantage points how the logic of neo-liberalism floats
the impression of its singular dominance, thereby
making free market fundamentalism the ‘only’ ordering
principle to constitute a better order. Jamie Peck clari-
fies that his analysis has a structural orientation, based
on the interplay of agents and agency,and he has little
to offer in terms of ‘bottom-up alternatives’.
In problematising its key theme the volume strikes at
the ontological roots of the highly elastic idea of ‘neo-
liberalism’ by shuffling concrete data and public policy
perspectives with ideas,imaginar ies,analogies and meta-
phors. It arrives at the conclusion that there is no single
way of perceiving and interpreting neo-liberalism;even
the author consciously steers clear of a postmodern
interpretation.The thrust here is more on the ‘situated’
stance, rather than on free-flow relativism. This is in
accordance with the author’s methodological strategy to
develop a sort of down-to-earth account that would not
present neo-liberalism as an ‘extraterrestrial force’.
Tracing the ‘winding path of neoliberalism from
crank science to common sense’ – by scrutinising
the ideational construction of the architecture of
neo-liberalism from the Hayek–Mises debate to the
Friedman-led Chicago School, and the modes of prac-
tical policy negotiations by Thatcher, Reagan and
Obama – the volume explains the deft management
of tensions, contradictions and crises – the creative
dynamics of neo-liberalism, which gives it a remarkable
surviving power. It also identifies the paradox of neo-
liberalism – its inherent compulsion to live with and
retain the state that it publicly seeks to disempower.
Peck concludes that despite its incredible power of
adaptation neo-liberalism is to face crisis under the
weight of countervailing forces and socio-ecological
limits. However he leaves the critical question of its
possible demise tantalisingly open.
The volume is a ‘must read’ because it indulges in
the delicate dialectics of abstract ideas and concrete
actions without being polemical and rhetorical, a rare
trait in the literature on neo-liberalism.
Dipankar Sinha
(University of Calcutta)
Immigration and the Constraints of Justice:
Between Open Borders and Absolute Sover-
eignty by Ryan Pevnick. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011. 210pp., £50.00, ISBN
9780521768986
At the beginning of this book, Ryan Pevnick
announces that he will eschew both the open borders
and sovereign control of borders positions that con-
BOOK REVIEWS 97
© 2012 TheAuthors. Political Studies Review © 2012 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2012, 10(1)
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