Findings – Drawing on Girard and Foucault’s work, this paper argues that the resilience of
neoliberalism partly ensues from the proclivity of this mode of governing to foster, for reasons that this
paper seeks to highlight, spontaneous and widespread processes of scapegoating in times of turmoil. As
a consequence of these processes, crises often are collectively construed as resulting from frauds: the
blame is focused on specific actors whose lack of morality is denounced, and this individualizing line of
interpretation protects the regime from systemic questioning