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Calls against austerity have entered the political agenda of very different actors in the political spectrum – from social democratic to right-wing populist parties. In this article, we argue that the main failures in realizing these claims and thus overcoming austerity can hardly be explained only in terms of (lacking) political will. We rather approach this problem complex in the two emblematic cases of Italy and Spain by foregrounding the disciplinary effects of capital accumulation in both the countries through a long-term historical reconstruction of the fiscal and steering capacity of their respective state institutions. Despite key specificities in the respective fragile accumulation regimes, the main findings point to the fact that the structure of accumulation has imposed strong constraints in both Italy and Spain. An unstable and crisis-prone capital accumulation characterized by low productivity, a lack of sectoral diversity, regional fragmentation, as well as high levels of exposure and dependency within variegated capitalism have restricted state capacity – a tendency only ruptured in temporary boom-cycles. This, we argue, entails some major implications, first, to address the present failures of social democratic forces and second, to gauge the concrete transformative potential at the politico-economic level of populist calls for ‘breaking the chains’ of austerity.

Assessments of the nature and trajectory of China's political economy polarise into a highly controversial debate. The present paper aims to introduce Antonio Gramsci as a powerful ally in making sense of the specificities of the Chinese case by shedding light on the past, present, and future of the Gramsci-China encounter. Starting from an in-depth assessment of the reception of Gramsci's textual legacy in Mainland China and of the main related problems, the paper promotes a philologically sound, diachronic approach to the potential of a Gramscian perspective in analysing China's peculiar trajectory, such as the ability to focus on: (1) the constructed nature of Chinese hegemony; (2) the terrain of China's integral state; (3) adopted strategies of passive revolution; (4) the materiality of Chinese hegemony; (5) its processual and contested nature across different times and scales; as well as ( 6) key links between intellectuals and the production of common sense.

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