Dissolving the public realm? The logics and limits of neo-liberalism

This paper explores the changing fortunes of the public realm during the last two decades. it poses the problem of how we think about globalisation and neo-liberalism as forces driving these changes. It then examines how different aspects of the public realm - understood as public interest, as public services and as a collective identity - have been subjected to processes of dissolution. Different processes have combined in this dissolution - in particular, attempts to privatise and marketise public services have been interleaved with attempts to de-politicise the public realm. Tracing these processes reveals that they have not been wholly successful encountering resistances, refusals and negotiations that mean the outcomes (so far) do not match the world imagined in neo-liberal fantasies.