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Neoliberalism, of course, is not unified or constant but differs across its geographical instantiations and transmogrifies over time. In the Euro Atlantic world today, two different and quite contingent forces are giving neoliberalism a new shape: on the one hand, financialization is configuring states, firms, associations and subjects in terms of capital valuation or credit worthiness (as opposed to productivity, efficiency, cost-benefit or interest maximization), and on the other hand, austerity regimes are effecting enormous shrinkages in human well being through cuts in jobs, pay, benefits and services.

Afin de contribuer à l'entreprise d'évaluation de l'héritage thatchérien qui était l'objet du colloque organisé à Lyon en décembre 2009, cet article se propose d'étudier l'influence des idées néolibérales sur l'opinion britannique. Il apparaît que le passage du consensus keynésien au consensus néolibéral, symbolisé par l'élection de Margaret Thatcher en 1979, doit beaucoup à l'action d'un petit groupe d'économistes qui, au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, se sont donné pour ambition de transformer les mentalités dans un sens plus conforme aux principes du libéralisme économique. Si le succès de la stratégie néolibérale est indéniable auprès des élites, on remarque cependant que la conversion du grand public reste partielle, notamment en ce qui concerne la privatisation des services publics.

Emma Bell is a Senior Lecturer in British Studies at Savoie University (Chambéry). Her research focuses on contemporary British penal policy. She will be publishing a book on the subject entitled Criminal Justice and Neoliberalism at the end of 2010 with Palgrave Macmillan.

A much debated topic has been the fundamental thrust of the New Labour project. Was it about the modernisation of social democracy or its abandonment? Did it adapt itself to the settlement bequeathed by Thatcherism and the neo-liberal paradigm it entrenched or seek it transcend it? This article discusses these contending interpretations focusing on the issue of public service reform, which lay at the heart of New Labour's domestic programme. It then explores the effects of New Labour's market-oriented 'modernisation' strategy on what social democrats have traditionally regarded as the normative underpinning of the public services, the 'public service ethos'.

Since 1980 the NHS has been converted from a planned, integrated service, to a set of quasi-businesses operating in a health care market, in which an increasingly significant role is being played by for-profit corporations. This policy was initiated by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher and John Major but continued and driven much further by the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The paper outlines the sequence of initiatives through which the transformation has been accomplished and assesses what has driven the change, and why it has been so relatively easy to accomplish.

This paper suggests that the role of the Thatcher governments in changing the course of economic and political development may have been exaggerated, and indeed that the role of political factors in general and "neo-liberalism" in particular is often overstated. An implication is that some current problems, interpreted as primarily political, have an economic dimension which is not fully taken into account. An example is the process of "financialisation"; this is frequently analysed in political terms although there are deep economic forces behind it.

Cette communication propose de faire un rapide tour d'horizon de quelques uns des aspects importants de la régénération de Glasgow depuis la fin des années 1970. Après avoir présenté les grandes lignes du concept de néolibéralisation tel qu'il est développé dans le champ de la recherche urbaine anglophone, nous verrons dans quelle mesure Glasgow en est une illustration de choix et quelles sont les perspectives d'évolution trente ans après le début de la mise en place du projet politique néolibéral.