Belgian neoliberalism(s)
Belgian neoliberalism remains comparatively underexplored in academic research, despite its centrality to the country’s contemporary political economy. The edited volume Le(s) Néolibéralisme(s) en Belgique (Piron and Evrard 2023, in French), to which several members of the political economy group contributed (see Gemander 2023; and Duterme 2023), marked an important step in addressing this gap and in helping to repoliticise this dimension of the country’s recent history.
Setting an agenda for future research, it highlighted the emergence of a new macroeconomic regime, its differentiated sectoral expressions, and the forms of resistance it has encountered. From public finance to industrial relations, and from administrative reform to environmental policy, neoliberal transformations appeared as uneven, and not always driven by a coherent or explicitly formulated project.
The book also underscored two key features of the Belgian polity that are central to understanding its trajectory of neoliberalisation: federalism and political fragmentation. Building on these insights, ongoing work further explores the negotiated character of these transformations, as well as topics such as the marketisation of public debt management, the legacies of socio-economic planning, the evolution of industrial relations, and Flemish social democracy in the 1980s.*
This research axis is conceived as an open and evolving space for exchange among scholars working on the political economy of Belgian neoliberalisation.
Researchers interested in engaging with or contributing to this work are warmly invited to get in touch.