Neoliberalism, Management and Religion

Neoliberalism, Management and Religion
Author: Edward Wray-Bliss
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2019-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351628178

The use of non-secular, religious, concepts in contemporary managerial discourse to legitimise leadership, organisation and work has been undertheorised. Concepts such as organisational soul, Spiritual Leadership, a wider deification (and demonisation) of leaders, and the mantra of individual freedom each evoke long religio-historical roots. The deployment of such terms in the present to (re)enrol people into the service of capitalism speaks both to high levels of religious belief worldwide and, more specifically, to a history of religion intersecting with public life in the US—a context pivotal in the development and dissemination of managerialism and wider neoliberal discourse. Organised around the concepts of Gods, Devils, Soul and the Individual this book will show how these concepts are being employed in current managerial, leadership and organisation discourses, critically examine the religio-historical and philosophical roots of such, and demonstrate how the religio-historical and religio-philosophical can be brought into the lexicon of critical organisational scholarship to provide a language to engage with the non-secular legitimation of capitalism and its institutions. In so doing, this book is a timely addition to organisation and management theory. It comes at a time that is witnessing a wider ‘theological turn’ in continental philosophy, mounting calls within organisation studies to ‘take religion seriously’, and an ongoing legitimation crisis of neoliberalism, one that is raising pivotal questions concerning how neoliberalism endures despite the deprivations and harms it occasions. This book is intended to be engaging and erudite, drawing upon a trans-disciplinary combination of popular and academic management texts, contemporary and classical philosophy, literature and religio-historical sources foundational in the construction of the Western subject.

Religion in the Neoliberal Age

Religion in the Neoliberal Age
Author: François Gauthier
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317067479

This book, together with a complementary volume 'Religion in Consumer Society', focuses on religion, neoliberalism and consumer society; offering an overview of an emerging field of research in the study of contemporary religion. Claiming that we are entering a new phase of state-religion relations, the editors examine how this is historically anchored in modernity but affected by neoliberalization and globalization of society and social life. Seemingly distant developments, such as marketization and commoditization of religion as well as legalization and securitization of social conflicts, are transforming historical expressions of 'religion' and 'religiosity' yet these changes are seldom if ever understood as forming a coherent, structured and systemic ensemble. 'Religion in the Neoliberal Age' includes an extensive introduction framing the research area, and linking it to existing scholarship, before looking at four key issues: 1. How changes in state structures have empowered new modes of religious activity in welfare production and the delivery of a range of state services; 2. How are religion-state relations transforming under the pressures of globalization and neoliberalism; 3. How historical churches and their administrations are undergoing change due to structural changes in society, and what new forms of religious body are emerging; 4. How have law and security become new areas for solving religious conflicts. Outlining changes in both the political-institutional and cultural spheres, the contributors offer an international overview of developments in different countries and state of the art representation of religion in the new global political economy.

Neoliberal Religion

Neoliberal Religion
Author: Mathew Guest
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2022-07-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350116408

This book explores neoliberalism as an account of contemporary society and considers what this means for our understanding of religion. Neoliberalism is a perspective grounded in free market economics and distinguished by a celebration of competition and consumer choice. It has had a profound influence in societies across the world, and has extended its reach into all areas of human experience. And yet neoliberalism is not just about enterprise and opportunity. It also comes with authoritarian leadership, gross inequality and the manipulation of information. How should we make sense of these changes, and what do they mean for the status of religion in the 21st century? Has religion been transformed into a market commodity or consumer product? Does the embrace of business methods make religious movements more culturally relevant, or can they be used to reinforce inequalities of gender or ethnicity? How might neoliberal contexts demand we think differently about matters of religious identity and power? This book provides an accessible discussion about religion in the 21st century. Mathew Guest asks what distinguishes neoliberal religion and explores the sociological and ethical questions that arise from considering its wider significance.

Spiritual Economies

Spiritual Economies
Author: Daromir Rudnyckyj
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-08-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0801462304

In Europe and North America Muslims are often represented in conflict with modernity—but what could be more modern than motivational programs that represent Islamic practice as conducive to business success and personal growth? Daromir Rudnyckyj's innovative and surprising book challenges widespread assumptions about contemporary Islam by showing how moderate Muslims in Southeast Asia are reinterpreting Islam not to reject modernity but to create a "spiritual economy" consisting of practices conducive to globalization. Drawing on more than two years of research in Indonesia, most of which took place at state-owned Krakatau Steel, Rudnyckyj shows how self-styled "spiritual reformers" seek to enhance the Islamic piety of workers across Southeast Asia and beyond. Deploying vivid description and a keen ethnographic sensibility, Rudnyckyj depicts a program called Emotional and Spiritual Quotient (ESQ) training that reconfigures Islamic practice and history to make the religion compatible with principles for corporate success found in Euro-American management texts, self-help manuals, and life-coaching sessions. The prophet Muhammad is represented as a model for a corporate CEO and the five pillars of Islam as directives for self-discipline, personal responsibility, and achieving "win-win" solutions. Spiritual Economies reveals how capitalism and religion are converging in Indonesia and other parts of the developing and developed world. Rudnyckyj offers an alternative to the commonly held view that religious practice serves as a refuge from or means of resistance against modernization and neoliberalism. Moreover, his innovative approach charts new avenues for future research on globalization, religion, and the predicaments of modern life.

Spirituality, Organization and Neoliberalism

Spirituality, Organization and Neoliberalism
Author: Emma Bell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: Neoliberalism
ISBN: 9781788973298

This book brings together analyses from across the social sciences to develop an interdisciplinary approach to understanding spiritualities and neoliberalism. It traces the lived experience of social actors as they engage with new and alternative spiritualities in neoliberal contexts. An international group of authors in anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political science, critical management studies explore the contemporary flourishing of subjectivities centred on a variety of spiritual practices and imaginaries. The book analyses the social and organisational mechanisms that underlie the generation of 'enterprising' and 'competitive' subjectivities engaged in transforming inner selves and social environments in accordance with prevailing neoliberal economic rationalities. Contributions draw on a wide range of empirical settings around the world to discuss the role of subjectivities in organizations. The purpose of the book is to provide specific insights into how neoliberalism is resisted, contested or reproduced through a transformative ethic of spiritual self-realization. Researchers, academics and Masters level students in a range of social science disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, human geography, and organization studies will find this book relevant reading. Contributors include:I. Abraham, E. Bell, L. Cortois, S. Gog, A.-R. Kaupinnen, J.D. LoRusso, D. Miller, K. Navazhylava, A. Peticca-Harris, G. Shanahan, A. Simionca, S. Taylor, K. Valaskivi, T. Vine, A. Yankellevich

The Origins of Neoliberalism

The Origins of Neoliberalism
Author: Dotan Leshem
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-06-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231541740

Dotan Leshem recasts the history of the West from an economic perspective, bringing politics, philosophy, and the economy closer together and revealing the significant role of Christian theology in shaping economic and political thought. He begins with early Christian treatment of economic knowledge and the effect of this interaction on ancient politics and philosophy. He then follows the secularization of the economy in liberal and neoliberal theory. Leshem draws on Hannah Arendt's history of politics and Michel Foucault's genealogy of economy and philosophy. He consults exegetical and apologetic tracts, homilies and eulogies, manuals and correspondence, and Church canons and creeds to trace the influence of the economy on Christian orthodoxy. Only by relocating the origins of modernity in Late Antiquity, Leshem argues, can we confront the full effect of the neoliberal marketized economy on contemporary societies. Then, he proposes, a new political philosophy that re-secularizes the economy will take shape and transform the human condition.

Spirituality, Corporate Culture and American Business

Spirituality, Corporate Culture and American Business
Author: James Dennis LoRusso
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Total Pages:
Release: 2017
Genre: Business
ISBN: 9781350006249

By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that one's job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the "spiritual" health of individuals and society alike. While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce "spirituality in the workplace" as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth and undermine the power of working people. LoRusso traces how this new moral language of business emerged as part of the larger shift away from the post-New Deal welfare state towards today's global market-oriented social order. Building on other studies that emphasize the link between American religious conservatism and the rise of global capitalism, LoRusso shows how progressive "spirituality" remains a vital part of this story as well.0Drawing on cultural history as well as case studies from New York City and San Francisco of businesses and leading advocates of workplace spirituality, this book argues that that religion reveals much about work, corporate culture, and business in contemporary America.

Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction

Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Manfred B. Steger
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2010-01-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191609765

Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism

Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism
Author: Keri Day
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2016-04-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137569433

Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism offers compelling and intersectional religious critiques of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the normative rationality of contemporary global capitalism that orders people to live by the generalized principle of competition in all social spheres of life. Keri Day asserts that neoliberalism and its moral orientations consequently breed radical distrust, lovelessness, disconnection, and alienation within society. She argues that engaging black feminist and womanist religious perspectives with Jewish and Christian discourses offers more robust critiques of a neoliberal economy. Employing womanist and black feminist religious perspectives, this book provides six theoretical, theologically constructive arguments to challenge the moral fragmentation associated with global markets. It strives to envision a pragmatic politics of hope.

Politics of Divination

Politics of Divination
Author: Joshua Ramey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2016-09-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 178348554X

Offers an interpretation of neoliberal ideology as a political theology of chance that both justifies and dissembles risk-laden market processes as obscure divination tools used both to determine fate and fortune and yet to deny that such determination is taking place by any accountable authority.