Neoliberalism has received particular attention in political science. Almost one- quarter of the works found on WoS are political science pieces, followed by sociology and economics with 10% each (see Fig. 2). It seems, therefore, timely to assess what have we learned about the politics of neoliberalism. This review essay takes into consideration three recent books, as well as additional academic literature, to reflect on the current status of research on the politics of neoliberalism, particularly in Europe’s periphery, drawing conclusions on neoliberalism as an empirical phenomenon and on the research practice behind the study of neoliberalism.
The three books here reviewed constitute important works for understanding the politics of neoliberalism today. Notably, they provide an account of neoliberalism from the periphery of Europe as opposed to the majority of other recent works con- centrating on advanced capitalist countries. This is relevant in itself since, although neoliberalism has a much longer and livelier life at the periphery of capitalism (in this case, the periphery of Europe), mainstream accounts tend to focus on the expe- rience of advanced countries. These books focus on Eastern Europe (Appel and Orenstein, Ban), Spain (Ban), and Israel (Maron and Shalev) to understand neoliber- alism’s past and future.