Riley Clare Valentine – författare

This book examines twentieth and twenty-first-century American political discourse through the framework of progressive liberalism and neoliberalism.

This book examines twentieth and twenty-first-century American political discourse through the framework of progressive liberalism and neoliberalism. Progressive liberalism and neoliberalism as forms of normative reason redefine specific political concepts, which are central to American liberalism—equality, liberty, the role of the state, and the pursuit of happiness. Language is how political reason and the norms accompanying it are expressed. The text moves through Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Barack Obama, exploring shifts in language and interpretations of political concepts through progressive liberal and neoliberal forms of normative reason. A tension emerges between progressive liberalism and neoliberalism, and a heterodoxy emerges. The heterodoxy we find ourselves in continues the problem that is foundational to American liberalism itself—liberalism is inherently a theory and discourse of rights, not of need. Because of this, no form of liberalism can appropriately respond to human needs from a standpoint that is not informed by having a right to or a right from.

This book offers a critical exploration of the interplay between law, care ethics, and the body, emphasizing how legal systems both reflect societal values and regulate and  discipline bodies and sexualities that deviate from normative standards, branding them as deviant or pathological. The authors contend that visibility—often celebrated as empowering—frequently serves as a mechanism of state control, subjecting marginalized bodies to cycles of hyper-visibility and erasure. Grounded in critical disability studies, queer theory, and Foucault’s theories of power, the book challenges liberalism’s focus on rights and autonomy, advocating instead for a framework centered on care ethics.