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Austerity as ideology: A reply to my critics

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

In this reply to Peck, Jabko, Thompson and Streek I seek to highlight the importance of the idea of austerity as driving policy rather than the more material factors that they stress. In particular, I question whether political opportunism, bond market demands for austerity or the greater crisis of growth of the Western economies are really driving events.

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Notes

  1. Seen in this way Streeck is perhaps telling Colin Crouch that, in Crouch’s terms, ‘Neoliberalism’s Strange Non-Death’ may be much more fatal then he anticipated, but only after the creditor classes have looted the corpse. See Schafer and Streeck (2013).

  2. My favorite example of this being the 2003–2006 Citibank billion dollar advertising campaign ‘Live Richly’.

  3. This was something that came across to me in interview after interview with bond traders as I researched Austerity.

  4. For Germany to be Germany, everyone else has to be ‘not Germany’. Everything in the global economy sums to zero and yet the ideology of austerity demands that we all become ‘more competitive’. See Austerity, Chapter 5.

  5. The term ‘captive audience’ is Sbrancia and Reinhardt’s.

  6. Clinton (1994–1999), Blair (1997–2001) and Prodi in the late 1990s spring to mind as obvious examples. However, note these are not examples of austerity. They are examples of paying back debt when there is growth, not when there is a recession.

  7. Which is a bit of a misnomer as paying back debt in a boom is not austerity. Austerity is paying back debt in a slump.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science and The Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Mark Blyth

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  1. Mark Blyth
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Blyth, M. Austerity as ideology: A reply to my critics. Comp Eur Polit 11, 737–751 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2013.25

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