1st Edition

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

By Sean Creaven Copyright 2023
260 Pages
by Routledge

260 Pages
by Routledge

260 Pages
by Routledge

This book offers a political analysis and sociological critique of the UK government’s response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, interpreting the inadequacies of government policy with regard to COVID-19 as the results of neoliberal ideology, the protection of corporate interests, Brexit nationalism, and the peculiarities of a British model of capitalism based on international trade and labour... Read more

Introduction: Anatomy of the UK Pandemic

1. The Road to Lockdown

2. NHS Shortages and the Ventilator Challenge

3. Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Welfare

4. Premature Unlockings and the Later Lockdowns

5. Border Insecurities

6. Communicative Ambivalence and Test and Trace

7. Mask Scepticism

8. Freedom Day

Conclusions: Beyond Freedom?

Biography

Sean Creaven is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the University of the West of England, UK. His research interests include the sociology of modernity and postmodernity, sociological theory, critical theory, Marxism and Post-Marxism, critical realism and criminological theory. He is the author of Against the Spiritual Turn: Marxism, Realism, and Critical Theory (Routledge, 2010), Emergentist Marxism: Dialectical Philosophy and Social Theory (Routledge, 2007), and Marxism and Realism: A Materialistic Application of Realism in the Social Sciences (Routledge, 2000).