Cooper follows the pioneering approach of Wendy Brown, whose American Nightmare' explains the compatibility of the 'fierce moral-political rationality' of neoconservatism with 'market-political rationality' as a product of the neoliberal weakening of democratic values, which enables the 'moralism, statism, and authoritarianism' of neoconservatism – even as the latter aims to compensate for some of the former's effects.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 169