The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy

Abstract

Purpose

To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus attention on the under‐explored area of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equalities work.

Design/methodology/approach

The interview is prefaced with a critical commentary on current UK equalities policy, contextualising the interview discussion, which links personal and collective histories and provides a comparison of equalities work over time.

Findings

Angela Mason, while top‐ranking civil servant, continues to claim the label activist. Like a variety of other equalities workers she uses multiple tactics to appeal to different constituents at different times and in different contexts.

Originality/value

This is an interview with one of the key protagonists in the development of UK equalities policies over the last 30 years. It is unique in its focus on the current overhaul of UK equalities policy from an “insider” and in its timing at the interim point of this reorganisation (October 2006).

Citation

Ward, N. (2007), "The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 507-514. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150710756711

The Twilight of Equality is a clearly written and concise text with the substantive content consisting of four core chapters – “Downsizing Democracy”, “The Incredible Shrinking Public”, “Equality Inc”, and “Love and Money” – which span just 90 pages. The author states that the Twilight of Equality is both an analysis of the politics of the 1990s but also a polemic that argues that “as long as the progressive left represents itself as divided into economic vs cultural, universal vs identity based, distribution vs recognition orientated, local or national vs global branches, it will defeat itself” (p. xx). The work will be accessible to a broad audience of academics and activists as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in social theory, politics, social policy, sociology and equality issues. Indeed, one of the book aims is to challenge a “pedagogic mode” that perpetuates divisions between “the [professional] academic” and “the activist”, seeking to develop alternative ways of “thinking, speaking, writing and acting that are engaged and curious about “other people” struggles for social justice” (p. 88).

Although the text is written primarily within the context of US politics, there are a range of parallels that can be drawn with Western European politics over the past 30 years, where similar shifts from social democratic to neoliberal government have been apparent. The focus of the book is on the changes that have occurred in the last decade of the 20th century, but Duggan begins in the introduction by tracing the cultural and political changes since the 1970s.

Chapter 1 contextualises The Twilight of Equality by exploring the development of liberalism in the USA. Duggan makes a forceful argument here that any challenge to neoliberalism, which she perceives to be experiencing a period of instability, needs to acknowledge the centrality of issues of race, gender and sexuality as well as economic class and nationality. She explores the origins of liberalism and notes that while liberal theory has been subject to debate and change the main categories of liberalism (state, economy, civil society and family), along with the master terms of “public” vs “private”, have remained relatively consistent. The argument is made that these terms and categories are rhetorical in that they provide the way of understanding and organising collective life. Here, Duggan traces the historical arguments of conservative politicians about the need for a proper role of a minimalist state and debates about the attack of the state on private freedoms while the tools of the state are simultaneously used to normalise a particular form of private life. This discussion, while historical, has particular resonance within the current UK context.

In her introduction, Duggan argues that there have been five phases that have contributed to the construction of the neoliberal hegemony: attacks on the New Deal coalition, progressive unionism, popular‐front political culture and progressive redistributive internationalism; attacks on downwardly redistributive social movements; pro‐business activism focused on redistributing upwards; domestically focused “culture wars” and attacks on public institutions and spaces for democratic public life; and emergent “multicultural” equality politics, which is a “stripped down, nonredistributive form of equality” (p. xii). In Chapters 2 and 3, Duggan uses case studies to illustrate the fourth and fifth phases of the construction of the neoliberal hegemony. The first of these two case studies illustrates the way that the “culture wars” have been played out in a backlash against feminist and queer debates on sexual freedom. While the case studies are US‐specific, the overarching arguments and lessons are transferable within global capitalist political and cultural frameworks, and there is a particularly useful illustration of the way that “consumer citizenship” can be differentiated in relation to economics and identity (p. 38).

The central thesis of The Twilight of Equality is that issues of culture and identity politics cannot be separated from, or treated as separate to, those of economics and redistribution. Duggan argues that “a sustainable opposition to neoliberal restructuring needs to connect culture, politics and economics; identity politics and class politics; universalist rhetoric and particular issues and interests; intellectual and material resources” (p. 41). Whether or not this is ultimately achievable, the ideas discussed in Twilight of Equality provide a convincing argument of the interrelationship between these issues, which are often seen as separate and competing within both academic and political debates.

One of the things that is noteworthy about Duggan's work is the centrality of issues of sexuality within the discussion. While sexuality has become more visible as an area of study in recent years, it is rarely acknowledged in such detail in more general discussions of the relationship between economic and political structures and identity politics. Here, it provides evidence of the problematic division between public and private as political concerns, as well as demonstrating the development of neoliberal cultural politics. In this sense, the work may be of particular interest to students of sexuality and queer theory as well as to those teaching in the areas of diversity and social structure.

On occasion, I found the very specific US focus a little confusing and it was necessary to clarify the context of particular US government initiatives referred to. Nevertheless, the parallels between developments in US politics and those in Europe and the UK, along with the US position as the “new Europe” in terms of their global cultural and economic domination, makes this text a particularly useful one for exploring and clarifying the relationship between neoliberal politics and issues of identity and equality. Its critique of the current pedagogic mode is also relevant to both contexts. This is particularly useful for students and scholars seeking to develop a critique that aims to move outside established academic parameters of “admonish and advise” and seeking to do more politically engaged work that looks to “locate, engage and expand productive political moments for future elaboration” (p. 81).