NEOLIBERALISM: THEORIES, PRACTICES AND CONFLICTS Presentation of the special issue

In the field of social and economic sciences there has been a growing number of books, articles, symposia, conferences and the like on neoliberalism and neoliberalisa-tion processes. Several perspectives – for example a “structural” and a “post-structura-list” one – have contributed to shed light on such a multifaceted phenomenon, also providing evidence about the entanglement between neoliberalism as a set of ontolog-ical phenomena and a bundle of different epistemological approaches. In fact, neo-liberalism and the process of neo-liberalization are both historical processes affecting public actions and the analytical categories through which these processes can be ex-plained. This special issue of Partecipazione & Conflitto, dedicated to neoliberalism as a field of theories, practices and conflicts, has taken up the scientific challenge to further ex-plore the variegation of those concrete shapes historically taken by the neoliberal par-adigm of action and takes time to take part in the open debate on the real heuristic usefulness of concepts as neoliberism and neoliberalisation.