Table Of ContentNew Perspectives on South-East Europe
Series Editors :
Spyros Economides, Associate Professor in International Relations and European
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
Series Advisory Board :
Richard Crampton, Emeritus Professor of Eastern European History at St Edmund
Hall, University of Oxford
Vladimir Gligorov, Staff Economist specialising in Balkan countries, The Vienna
Institute for International Economic Studies, Austria
Jacques Rupnik, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre d’études et de recherches
internationales of Sciences Po, France
Susan Woodward, Professor, The Graduate Program in Political Science at City
University of New York, USA.
South-East Europe presents a compelling agenda: a region that has challenged
European identities, values and interests like no other at formative periods of
modern history and is now undergoing a set of complex transitions. It is a region
made up of new and old European Union member states, as well as aspiring ones;
early ‘democratising’ states and new post-communist regimes; states undergoing
liberalising economic reforms, partially inspired by external forces, whilst coping
with their own embedded nationalisms; and states obliged to respond to new
and recurring issues of security, identity, well-being, social integration, faith and
secularisation.
This series examines issues of inheritance and adaptation. The disciplinary reach
incorporates politics and international relations, modern history, economics and
political economy and sociology. It links the study of South-East Europe across a
number of social sciences to European issues of democratisation and economic
reform in the post-transition age. It addresses ideas as well as institutions; policies
as well as processes. It will include studies of the domestic and foreign policies of
single states, relations between states and peoples in the region, and between the
region and beyond. The EU is an obvious reference point for current research on
South-East Europe, but this series also highlights the importance of South-East
Europe in its eastern context: the Caucuses, the Black Sea and the Middle East.
Titles include :
Ayhan Aktar, Niyazi Kizilyürek and Umut Özkirimli (e ditors )
NATIONALISM IN THE TROUBLED TRIANGLE
Cyprus, Greece and Turkey
William Bartlett, Jadranka Bozikov and Bernd Rechel (e ditors )
HEALTH REFORMS IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE
Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic, James Ker-Lindsay and Denisa Kostovicova (e ditors )
CIVIL SOCIETY AND TRANSITIONS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS
Kevin Featherstone, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis, and
Georgios Niarchos
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
The Impact of the EU Accession Process on Turkish NGOs
New Perspectives on South-East Europe
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–23052–1 (hardback) and
978–0–230–23053–8 (paperback)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBNs quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
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
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-47483-7 ISBN 978-1-137-36923-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137369239
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managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
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
