The Pandemic in Britain: COVID-19, British Exceptionalism and Neoliberalism

Creaven, Sean

Abstract

This book is to a large degree an attempt to examine the reasons for the UK government’s internationally suboptimal performance in addressing the novel coronavirus pandemic. As such, this is conceived as a work of political and social critique. The two aspects of critique are interlinked. The political dimension of critique is of the gross inadequacies of UK government policy with regard to COVID-19 as this response has been framed by neoliberal ideology, the protection of corporate interests, the constraints of austerity politics, Brexit nationalism, and the peculiarities of a British model of capitalism that is more internationalized or export-based than those of the other developed countries. The social (or socio-economic) dimension of critique is of a type of society in which corporate-capitalist control of economy and state and science is institutionalized.

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Jun 9, 2023
• Publication Date: Jun 9, 2023
• Deposit Date: Mar 28, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 10, 2024
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Series Title: The COVID-19 Pandemic Series
• ISBN: 9781032191683; 9781032229850
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10492078
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/The-Pandemic-in-Britain-COVID-19-British-Exceptionalism-and-Neoliberalism/Creaven/p/book/9781032229850
• Contract Date: Aug 22, 2022