The Politics of Extreme Austerity: Greece in the Eurozone Crisis

337 Pages·2015·1.509 MB·English

by  Georgios Karyotis, Roman Gerodimos (eds.)

New Perspectives on South-East Europe
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Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Kevin Featherstone, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek
Studies and Professor of European Politics, London School of Economics and
Political Science, UK
Sevket Pamuk, Professor of Economics and Economic History, The Ataturk
Institute for Modern Turkish History and Department of Economic, Bogaziçi
(Bosphorus) University, Turkey
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internationales of Sciences Po, France
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NATIONALISM IN THE TROUBLED TRIANGLE
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HEALTH REFORMS IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE
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THE LAST OTTOMANS
The Muslim Minority of Greece 1941–1949
Alexis Heraclides
THE GREEK-TURKISH CONFLICT IN THE AEGEAN
Imagined Enemies
Markus Ketola
EUROPEANIZATION AND CIVIL SOCIETY
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The Politics of Extreme
Austerity: Greece in the
Eurozone Crisis
Edited by
Georgios Karyotis
Senior Lecturer in International Relations, School of Social and Political Sciences,
University of Glasgow, UK
and
Roman Gerodimos
Principal Lecturer in Global Current Affairs, Faculty of Media and Communication,
Bournemouth University, UK
Selection and editorial matter © Georgios Karyotis and Roman Gerodimos 2015
All remaining chapters © respective authors 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-36922-2
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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ISBN 978-1-349-47483-7 ISBN 978-1-137-36923-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137369239
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Contents
List of Figures v ii
List of Tables v iii
Acknowledgements i x
Notes on Contributors x
List of Abbreviations xvi
Introduction: Dissecting the Greek Debt Crisis 1
Georgios Karyotis and Roman Gerodimos
Part I Framing Contests and Crisis Management
1 The Contradictions and Battlegrounds of Crisis Management 15
Andrew Hindmoor and Allan McConnell
2 European Discourses on Managing the Greek Crisis:
Denial, Distancing and the Politics of Blame 34
Dimitris Papadimitriou and Sotirios Zartaloudis
3 ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’: Stereotypes, Prejudices
and Emotions on Greek Media Representation of the
EU Financial Crisis 46
Tereza Capelos and Theofanis Exadaktylos
Part II The Policies of Extreme Austerity
4 An Evaluation of the Austerity Strategy in the Eurozone:
Was the First Greek Bailout Programme Bound to Fail? 71
Sotiria Theodoropoulou and Andrew Watt
5 ‘Off-the-Shelf Reforms’ and Their Blind Spots: Pensions in
Post-Memorandum Greece 91
Platon Tinios
6 A ‘Fairweather Welfare State’? Formal and Informal Social
Protection and the Greek Crisis 106
Antigone Lyberaki and Platon Tinios
v
vi Contents
Part III The Politics of Extreme Austerity
7 P rotest Participation, Electoral Choices and Public Attitudes
towards Austerity in Greece 1 23
Georgios Karyotis and Wolfgang Rüdig
8 A nger Management and the Politics of Crime in the
Greek Crisis 1 42
Sappho Xenakis and Leonidas Cheliotis
9 R eorganising Everyday Greek Social Reality: Subjective
Experiences of the Greek Crisis 1 60
Athanasia Chalari
Part IV The Crisis Beyond Greece
10 S tructure, Agents and Discourse in Managing Economic
Crises: Comparing Greece and Turkey 179
Dimitris Tsarouhas
11 T he Politics of Fiscal Efforts in Ireland and Spain: Market
Credibility vs Political Legitimacy 1 98
Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda and Niamh Hardiman
12 C redibility Dilemmas During Economic Crises:
Greece in the Argentine Mirror 2 22
Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda
13 R eflections on the Greek and Eurozone Crisis:
A View from the Inside 2 40
George Papandreou
14 A usterity Politics and Crisis Governance:
Lessons from Greece 2 59
Roman Gerodimos and Georgios Karyotis
Appendix: A Timeline of the Greek and Eurozone Crises 272
Bibliography 2 82
Index 3 13
List of Figures
3.1 M ap of blame attributions during the Greek debt crisis 66
4.1 I mport penetration (imports as share of domestic demand)
in selected eurozone members, 1999–2008 7 9
4.2 E xport propensity (exports as percentage of GDP) in
selected eurozone members, 1998–2010 8 2
5.1 P ension totals as a percentage of GDP by pillar, 2007 9 4
5.2 P ublic expenditure on old age and old-age poverty 9 5
5.3 C umulative reductions of pensions-in-payment, 2010–13 101
6.1 I nformal response to need: Greece and other
SHARE countries 1 11
6.2 C hanges in ability to afford long-term care:
October 2010 vs. December 2011 1 14
7.1 B lame attributions for the crisis 1 26
7.2 A ttitudes towards the austerity measures 1 28
7.3 A ttendance of ‘lawful’ demonstrations in lifetime 1 30
11.1 T he scale of fiscal effort, 2009–12 1 99
11.2 T en-year interest rates on government bonds 2 01
11.3 R atings agencies’ assessments for Spain 2 05
11.4 O pinion poll ratings of political parties in Spain 207
11.5 R atings agencies’ assessments for Ireland 2 13
11.6 O pinion poll ratings of political parties in Ireland 2 15
11.7 N et trust in national government 2 19
vii
List of Tables
1.1 M odels of party behaviour and explanations for party
positioning in crisis situations 2 1
1.2 M ain party narratives in relation to crisis: emphasis on
government–opposition conflict 2 3
1.3 M ain party narratives in relation to crisis: emphasis on
government–opposition consensus 2 4
2.1 M entions of the word ‘crisis’ in EurActiv article titles 3 6
3.1 T imeline of newspaper headlines and count of opinion
pieces in the sample 5 4
6.1 S ources of income during past periods out of work in
respondents’ lifetimes 1 12
6.2 D ebt indicators in households and companies,
selected OECD countries 1 13
7.1 N umber of demonstrations in Greece, 2010–11 132
7.2 E lection results in Greece, 2009–14 1 37
9.1 P articipant selection criteria 1 66
11.1 E xpected and actual deficit out-turns in Greece,
Spain and Ireland 2 00
viii
Acknowledgements
The editors wish to thank all participants of the international confer-
ence on ‘The Politics of Extreme Austerity’ held at the University of
Strathclyde in December 2011, which set the foundations for the present
book. The conference was funded by the Political Studies Association
(PSA) and supported by the HSBC Glasgow Branch – their financial
support is gratefully acknowledged.
We are also thankful to the Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG)
of the PSA that organised the conference and our colleagues at GPSG’s
executive committee, Theofanis Exadaktylos, Stella Ladi, Andreas
Liaropoulos, Vasilis Leontitsis and Dimitris Tsarouhas, for their contin-
uous counsel throughout this project.
We are particularly grateful to Andrew Judge, Ana Alania and Auguste
Janutaite for their editorial and research assistance, to Nick James for
indexing, and to Vidhya Jayaprakash and the Newgen team for their
production and editorial support. Thanks also to Amber Stone-Galilee,
Andrew Baird and Jemima Warren at Palgrave Macmillan for their
encouragement and advice. For covering the cost of interviews, trips
and assistants, we are indebted to the Journalism Research Group and
the Politics & Media Research Group at Bournemouth University and to
Christopher Carman, the Head of School of Social and Political Sciences
at Glasgow University. We would like to extend thanks to many others
who contributed to this project in varied ways, including Richard Rose,
Anthony McGrew, Bill Paterson, Gemma Deigman, Jean McCallum,
Rafail Tsartsalis Kyriakou, Christopher Hart, Timothy Miller, Katerina
Lambrinou, Rob Johns, Catherine Eschle, Mark Shephard, Robert
Thomson, Myrto Tsakatika and David Judge.
Finally, we are most grateful to our partners and families, both in
the UK and in Greece, for their patience, love and support during what
has been an intense and demanding couple of years. We hope that this
volume will contribute to our understanding of, and ability to overcome,
the economic crisis within and beyond Greece.
ix