Worstelen met de markt: de vele gezichten van het neoliberalisme bij Nederlandse beleidsadviesraden (1998-2005)

This article studies the quiet rise of neoliberal modes of government in the Netherlands during the 1990s. Using a Foucauldian governmentality perspective, it examines twelve reports issued by independent governmental policy advisory councils between 1998 and 2005 to see how they reflected on the changing relationship between the market and government. In response to the growing neoliberalization of Dutch policy, the advisory councils asked how market instruments could be put to better use for attaining public policy goals. Four patterns were identified in their response. First, the advisory councils moved to depoliticize the market question by providing a scientific and rational footing for neoliberal policies. Second, the reports indirectly pointed out that neoliberal policies are not concerned with real markets but play on the market metaphor when designing marketlike solutions for public purposes. Third, it was shown that the neoliberal play on the market metaphor enabled the articulation of a variety of neoliberal interventions, each with distinct political implications. Fourth, it showed how Dutch neoliberal discourse was increasingly being framed around the notion of ‘borgen’ (safeguarding) of the public interest, in an attempt to realign neoliberal policies with the public interest. These findings challenge popular explanations that tend to view ‘neoliberalism’ as a grand ideology or policy agenda but point at the everyday role of policy advice in the making of neoliberal forms of government.