Bruised but not beaten: the persistence of austerity in Europe

Abstract

State responses to the global financial and European sovereign debt crisis have been dominated by a paradigm of austerity. This paradigm has called for the reduction of public expenditure on the basis that recent economic crises were caused by excessive public spending and debt. In contrast to explanations of austerity’s persistence that focus on the role of powerful actors or institutions, this article will highlight the role of discourse and argumentation. To do so, the article presents a political claims analysis of public debates on austerity in the mass media in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland between 2010 and 2013. In doing so, the article contributes to broader discussions on the resilience of neoliberalism since the global financial and European sovereign debt crises by calling for a greater appreciation of the variegated nature of austerity’s application in different national contexts.

Keywords:

• Discourse
• financial crisis
• sovereign debt crisis
• austerity
• mass media
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgements

The material for this article is drawn from the author’s thesis within the Research Master European Studies at Maastricht University. Thanks to Prof. Tannelie Blom for the supervision of that thesis and comments on this article. Thank you also to Dr Andreas Antoniades for additional comments.

Notes

1. The code book is available elaborating the political claims analysis from [email protected]

2. ! indicates the possible permutations of each word.

3. ‘2010a’ refers to January 2010–June 2010, ‘2010b’ refers to July 2010–December 2010, etc.