Two contradictory definitions of “neoliberalism” complicate the debate on its relationship with the liberal script. One refers to a presumed global retreat of the state from the economy from the 1970s; the other one sees it as a set of ideas that emphasise a central role for the state as creator and defender of a competitive market order. In the latter, analytically more useful definition, neoliberalism has been a key intellectual underpinning of both the liberal script, especially in the peripheries of
the world economy, and some of its most powerful contestations in the West.

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