Description
Book SynopsisBlazing the Neoliberal Trail asks how and why urban policy and politics have become dominated, over the past three decades, by promarket thinking. Drawing on extensive archival research, Timothy P. R. Weaver shows how elites became persuaded by neoliberal ideas and remade political institutions in their image.
Trade Review"Enterprise Zones are one of many policies that have persisted over the years without the presence of much hard evidence to support their effectiveness or worthiness of public dollars. Timothy P.R. Weaver offers a compelling reason why this occurs: ideas matter more than the material outcomes they generate. The notion that ideas, more than interests and institutions, can drive decades of policy decisions runs throughout
Blazing the Neoliberal Trail, and it is conveyed through a meticulous political-historical account of urban policy in the United States and the United Kingdom." *
Political Science Quarterly *
"The story of enterprise zones has long deserved a full historical treatment, and political scientist Timothy P.R. Weaver provides it in
Blazing the Neoliberal Trail. He casts enterprise zones, a supply-side strategy devised to unleash the restorative power of the free market on distressed urban areas, as a flagship policy in the shift from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. In telling the story of enterprise zones' uneven implementation in the US and the UK, Weaver underscores the significance of the interplay between national and local states in shaping urban political development and emphasizes the role of ideas in the neoliberalization of urban policy." *
Planning Perspectives *
"By applying an argument regarding the power of ideas at the local level, Timothy Weaver is joining some of the most interesting recent work in urban politics. His careful study of the relationship between national forces and local dynamics is an important contribution." * Richardson Dilworth, Drexel University *
