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Expanding financialisation of the economy and society represents a constitutive feature of the neoliberal regime. This process is also underway in various domains of state action, including the welfare state. This article uses a case study of financialisation of a cash transfer programme – the establishment of the Israeli 'Saving for Every Child' programme – to tackle two main questions: Which political constellations are likely to promote financialisation in social policy? And, what are the ramifications of financialisation for the politics of the welfare state? The study suggests that in a context of conflict between redistributive demands and opposition to the decommodifying effects of universal cash benefits, financialisation provides a political solution which satisfies the former while subordinating it to principles of commodifying social investment. The study further indicates that the financialisation of redistributive policies changes the politics of the welfare state by making financial market actors and considerations an integral part of welfare policy-making processes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realisation of some neoliberal reforms depends on the public's behaviour. Given that, how do neoliberal elites operate to advance behavioural changes in the public? This question is particularly acute for neoliberals, who concurrently emphasize individuals' 'right to choose' and their obligation to 'make the right choice'. While the literature commonly focuses on either ideational persuasion or on practice-based measures (nudge), this paper identifies an additional instrument: the construction of 'model experiences' – experiences that provide common citizens with a model for their future behaviour. By constructing model experiences, neoliberal elites aim to influence mass behaviour on two interrelated levels: first, through the practical training offered by the experience itself, and second, through the wider lessons that can be conveyed to the participants who reflect on the experience. We illustrate this argument with a case study of a model experience of household financialisation: Israel's Saving for Every Child program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal economists are known to be one of the driving forces behind economic liberalisation in various countries, but how did they become so politically influential? Constructivists generally suggest that during economic crises liberal economists persuaded decision-makers to adopt pro-market policy ideas as solutions for economic turbulence. While this answer is true, it is also only partial because it disregards the role played by governance-related ideas and institutional entrepreneurship in the political actions of liberal economists. I argue that ideas regarding decision-making mechanisms provided liberal economists with the basis for creatively exploiting pre-liberalisation institutions, such as central banks and central budget offices, through which these economists enhanced their long-term political influence. An in-depth examination of a paradigmatic case of economic liberalisation driven by liberal economists – Israel's Stabilisation Plan – exemplifies that argument. The existence of like-minded economists and similar pre-liberalisation policy-making institutions in many other countries hints that the Israeli experience is not unique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]