Legitimating Austerity - by Tiago Moreira Ramalho (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Tiago Moreira Ramalho's important new book provides crucial new insights on the politics of crisis in southern Europe, undermining and revising many existing interpretations. In a skillful exercise of "constructivist institutionalism", Legitimating Austerity shows that the highly debatable case for austerity was woven together by supranational entities and domestic political actors within Greece, Portugal and Spain. Although their efforts failed in various economically relevant ways, they succeeded in persuading much of the public, winning decisive elections through a pro-austerity framing of economic challenges." --Robert M. Fishman, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain

"Legitimating Austerity is a timely and essential contribution to the field of political economy. Through rich empirical research and sharp analysis, Moreira Ramalho masterfully unpacks how austerity was not merely a response to economic crises, but a deeply political project that influenced the course of Southern Europe. His nuanced examination of the narratives and legitimation processes behind austerity reveals the complexity of crisis management, offering fresh insights into the interplay of politics, economics, and power. This book is an indispensable read for anyone seeking to understand the lasting impacts of austerity in Europe and beyond." --Manuela Moschella, University of Bologna, Italy

"In this vital contribution to the field, Tiago Moreira Ramalho brilliantly challenges our understanding of the politics of European austerity. He shows that national elites across Southern Europe were not simply the victims of an inevitable austerity imposed from without. They were its architects. Deftly navigating across a range of cases, Moreira Ramalho brings piercing new insights into the making of European austerity." --Jeremy Green, University of Cambridge, UK

"This is a book about austerity as a political project, not an economic necessity or moral imperative. Tiago Moreira Ramalho succeeds two tasks simultaneously: he provides a nuanced picture of sovereign debt crises and responses in Southern Europe and paints a broad and convincing picture of the political origins of austerity, anchored both at the domestic and at the international level. A perspective much needed on economic policy with relevance well beyond Europe." --Cornelia Woll, Hertie School, Germany

"Legitimating Austerity is to my knowledge the most complete account of the imposition, legitimation and contestation of austerity as it took place across Southern Europe during the 2010s." --Mobilization

About the Author

Tiago Moreira Ramalho is a Researcher in Political Science at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His research focuses on the politics of international economic governance. He earned his Ph.D. from Sciences Po and has been Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University.