Dr Ian McGimpsey
Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham

Wednesday 23rd November 2016, 2-3pm
Venue: S1.50 (Faculty Hub), Social Sciences Building

The language of austerity has been widely used to characterize policy-making in post-industrial nations since the financial crisis. Youth services in England are a noted example of the effects of austerity, having suffered extraordinarily rapid and severe cuts following a period of record investment prior to 2008. I argue that ‘austerity’ is an inadequate conceptual basis for critical analysis of policy-making in the phase since 2008, and that youth services are an exemplar case of the reforming effects of a ‘late neoliberal regime’. The late neoliberal regime describes a regulation of production through a finance capital imaginary, as distinct from the productive capital imaginary of the neoliberal regime. I argue that this regime can be understood to effect simultaneously the disassembly of the neoliberal youth services assemblage and the emergence of a new youth sector assemblage founded on norms of investment and return. I trace the effects of this regime through the productive relations of capital distributions, policy discourse, and organizational forms.

This seminar is co-hosted by the Centre for Education Studies and the Sociology Department.