Description
Literature in international political economy has increasingly confronted the rise of state interventionism across a range of policy areas in the economy and considered whether it constitutes a departure from core parameters of neoliberalism. However, over the past several years, surging inflation and a prolonged monetary tightening cycle have contributed to an increasingly hostile global economic environment for public borrowing and spending, central ingredients of state intervention in the economy. This paper argues that the premiership of Liz Truss and the fallout from the mini-Budget in the fall of 2022 in the UK provide a valuable case study to examine recent developments in neoliberalism and the changing role of the state amidst intensifying instabilities in the global political economy. It examines an unfolding conflict between the Truss government’s libertarian economic agenda and British state officials seeking to preserve a consensus on monetary dominance, fiscal discipline, and technocratic economic policymaking. The paper evaluates the wider implications of this conflict for understanding current dynamics of economic policymaking and assesses whether the adverse financial market response to the mini-Budget and the subsequent downfall of the Truss government reflect broader constraints on state action within the current global economic context.
