Orchestrating Austerity

Following the 2007-08 global financial crisis, Western nations engaged a variety of measures that departed quite dramatically from conventional neoliberal wisdom. However, these policies were quickly succeeded by what we now call "austerity" measures. This collection engages with the question: Is there something new in this era of austerity, or should this be understood as a continuation and intensification of earlier forms of neoliberalism? Finally, Jim Stanford's afterword probes to the heart of the question of why austerity in the first place.

Bryan M. Evans, Stephen McBride, and their contributors delve further into the more practical, ground-level side of the austerity equation in Austerity: The Lived Experience. Economically, austerity policies cannot be seen to work in the way elite interests claim that they do. Rather than soften the blow of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 for ordinary citizens, policies of austerity slow growth and lead to increased inequality. While political consent for such policies may have been achieved, it was reached amidst significant levels of disaffection and strong opposition to the extremes of austerity. The authors build their analysis in three sections, looking alternatively at theoretical and ideological dimensions of the lived experience of austerity; how austerity plays out in various public sector occupations and policy domains; and the class dimensions of austerity. The result is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of austerity politics and policies.

Austerity was presented as the antidote to sluggish economies, but it has had far-reaching effects on jobs and employment conditions. With an international team of editors and authors from Europe, North America and Australia, this illuminating collection goes beyond a sole focus on public sector work and uniquely covers the impact of austerity on work across the private, public and voluntary spheres. Drawing on a range of perspectives, the book engages with the major debates surrounding austerity and neoliberalism, providing grounded analysis of the everyday experience of work and employment.

The fall-out from the economic and financial crisis of 2008 had profound implications for countries across the world, leading different states to determine the best approach to mitigating its effects. In The Austerity State, a group of established and emerging scholars tackles the question of why states continue to rely on policies that, on many levels, have failed. After 2008, austerity policies were implemented in various countries, a fact the contributors link to the persistence of neoliberalism and its accepted wisdoms about crisis management. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 collapse, governments and central banks appeared to adopt a Keynesian approach to salvaging the global economy. This perception is mistaken, the authors argue. The “austerian” analysis of the crisis is ahistorical and shifts the blame from the under-regulated private sector to public, or sovereign, debt for which public authorities are responsible. The Austerity State provides a critical examination of the accepted discourse around austerity measures and explores the reasons behind its continued prevalence in the world.

Austerity is not always one-size-fits-all; it can be a flexible, class-based strategy taking several forms depending on the political-economic forces and institutional characteristics present. This important book identifies continuity and variety in crisis-driven austerity restructuring across Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Spain. In their analysis, the authors focus on several components of austerity, including fiscal and monetary policy, budget narratives, public sector reform, labor market flexibilization, and resistance. In so doing, they uncover how austerity can be categorized into different dynamic types, and expose the economic, social, and political implications of the varieties of austerity.

This book addresses the different forms of austerity, contestation and resistance, in order to understand how they relate to one another and the impact they have on the democratic quality of public debates, the trust in public institutions and the legitimacy of law. Contestation of austerity includes not only traditional activism strategies such as human rights litigation and direct democracy instruments, but also new forms of collective action and collaborative resistance. Most importantly, many of the new anti-austerity initiatives also aim to renovate existing modes of democratic decision-making on the European, national, regional and local levels. The book focuses on different types of contesting austerity measures and the interaction between institutional and civil society actors. It will enhance understanding of how the various actors frame not only their goal but also the underlying social conflict to contest austerity and through which means they try to achieve political and legal changes. With 16 chapters written by contributors from Spain, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the UK, the book approaches 3 crucial areas of austerity policies: cuts in payment and pensions, labour law reform, and old and new poverty. In each field, the contributors analyse the processes of decision-making and contestation from 3 perspectives: institutions, democratic theory and societal responses.

The effects of the 2008 financial crisis were ameliorated by large-scale social policy interventions, which both helped limit the depth and duration of the crisis and softened its worst effects on citizens. Yet in the wake of the crisis, those very same social policies and the welfare state they support have come under attack. There is, however, reason to be optimistic, argue the contributors to Social Policy in Times of Austerity. Bringing together leading scholars engaged in the debate over austerity and the future of the welfare state, the book traces the strong currents of resistance to austerity that continue to thrive within organizations, governments, and the citizenry at large.

In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, governments around the developed world coordinated policy moves to stimulate economic activity and avert a depression. In subsequent years, however, cuts to public expenditure, or austerity, have become the dominant narrative in public debate on economic policy. This unique collaboration between economists and linguists examines manifestations of the discourses of austerity as these have played out in media, policy and academic settings across Europe and the Americas. Adopting a critical perspective, it seeks to elucidate the discursive and argumentation strategies used to consolidate austerity as the dominant economic policy narrative of the twenty-first century.