Melinda Cooper’s research focuses on the interaction between neoliberal and new conservative practices of government. Her most recent monograph, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (2017) sought to theorize the principle of family responsibility as a lynchpin between neoliberal and new conservative approaches to political life. She is currently completing a book-length study into the neoliberal remaking of public finance, with a special focus on the contradictory but symbiotic relationship between supply side tax cutters and public choice budget balancers. The book project is tentatively titled Appreciating Assets: Capital Gains and Public Austerity. She is also working on a political theory of the resurgent far right and its relationship to financial crisis.

 

She currently leads an ARC Discovery Grant exploring the impact of Virginia school neoliberalism on the fiscal politics of the American and Australian state.

 

Recent and forthcoming publications

 

Cooper, Melinda (2020) “Infinite Regress: Virginia School Neoliberalism and the Tax Revolt” Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 2:1 (in press)

 

Cooper, Melinda (2020) “Risk, Insurance, Security: Ewald’s History of the Welfare State,” in François Ewald, Risk, Security and Solidarity: The Rise of the Welfare State [Histoire de l’Etat Providence], translation by Timothy Johnson. Introduction by Melinda Cooper. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, xiv-xxvii.

 

Cooper, Melinda (2019) “Secular Stagnation: Keynesianism and the Demographic Theory of Crisis,” Theory & Event 22:2: 337-359.

 

Cooper, Melinda (2019) “Anti-Austerity on the Far Right.” In Zachary Manfredi and William Callison (eds), Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture. New York: Fordham University Press. 112-145. 

 

Recent Interviews

 

“A Sagrada Família: Neoliberalismo e Neoconservadorismo na Extrema Direita Hoje.” Entrevista com Melinda Cooper, Bruna Della Torre Marxismo feminista 30 June 2020 https://marxismofeminista.com/2020/06/30/a-sagrada-familia-neoliberalismo-e-neoconservadorismo-na-extrema-direita-hoje/

 

Forthcoming events

 

Economythologies ML#X -- Financial Charismatics, MoneyLab, Ainslie+Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra, November 6, 2020

 

Affiliations

 

Debt Justice Working Group, Progressive International