Neoliberal racism: the ‘Southern Strategy’ and the expanding geographies of white supremacy

This paper examines the US-based ‘Southern Strategy,’ an electoral scheme which created conditions that resurrected a broadly conservative agenda in the USA during the 1970s. While scholars have long studied the Southern Strategy from the standpoint of the electoral and political geography of the USA, its role in transforming the political economy of the USA is underappreciated. By reworking the nature of racism from the overt white supremacy of previous eras the Southern Strategy speaks to the changing socio-spatial manifestations of racism in the USA and the workings of the US political economy. By connecting the Southern Strategy with a broad economic argument this paper crystallizes the role race plays in the development of the US political economy as well as implications for understanding the way race and capitalism in the USA are co-constituted with one another. Through an examination of the Southern Strategy we can trace both the changing coordinates of the US political economy and race as the USA made the transition from Keynesianism to neoliberalism.