Tales of passage from the North to the South and back: Constitutionalizing (European) neoliberalism

In this chapter we track and trace the road to advanced neoliberal economic constitutionalism and entrenched austerity with an eye to the European North-South relations. In some contrast to the argument of a hidden continuity of mixed economies with regard to the Americas, we argue that neoliberalization significantly transformed the institutional matrix of mixed economy arrangements of the 1950s-1960s in ways that makes it difficult to return to (socialist or conservative-communitarian) politics of decommodification in Europe and the global South. The pandemic moment of the contemporary multiple crisis of globalized capitalism at the same time provides ultimate proof of the lingering crisis limits of “embedded neoliberalism”. The paradox combination of supranational drivers of marketization and residual stabilization at the national level is breaking down. Although the history of the 1970s and the limited internationalism of the left does not offer much hope in terms of moving toward an alternative to embedded neoliberalism, looking back to the crossroads of the battles around coordinated Keynesianism and the New International Economic Order provides useful insights for contemporary ambitions to go beyond neoliberal modes of social transformation.