Legitimating Austerity

The Politics of Crisis in Southern Europe

Tiago Moreira Ramalho

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781350405301
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book reexamines the politics of austerity during the euro crisis, challenging conventional narratives of austerity as either an inevitable economic remedy or an external imposition. Focusing on Greece, Portugal, and Spain, it demonstrates that austerity was a political project shaped and contested across domestic, international, and transnational levels. Drawing on extensive empirical material, the book explores how austerity policies were legitimated in southern Europe and how they evolved throughout the crisis. It analyses the construction of crisis narratives, and the critical role of national actors in rooting the crisis in domestic failure. It examines the implementation of austerity policies, revealing how they were justified but also malleable and contingent upon political work. And it shows how austerity was opposed by an increasingly transnational social movement. The book offers critical insights into the politics of crisis management and the contested legacy of austerity in contemporary debates on how to govern the European economy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Figures, Tables, and Images
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Where Does Austerity Come From?
• Chapter 2 Making the Southern European Crises
• Chapter 3 Austerity at Work (I): The First Greek Bailout
• Chapter 4 Austerity at Work (II): Bailing-Out Southern Europe
• Chapter 5 Does Austerity Work? Evaluation, Adaptation and Failure
• Chapter 6 Rallying Against Austerity: Heterodoxies in Movement
• Chapter 7 Beyond Austerity?
• Chapter 8 Conclusion
• Appendix: Method and List of Interviews
• Bibliography
• Index
• Imprint