Disciplining Greece: Crisis Management and Its Discontents

COVID-19 is a transboundary crisis that crosses political boundaries and affects critical infrastructure. Given the ongoing nature of COVID-19, it is vital to recognize the factors that impact an organization’s ability to respond to crises. In this article, we use the concept of bureaucratic autonomy discussed by Bauer and Ege (2016) to examine the response of four regional intergovernmental organizations. We find here that neoliberalism as a dominating global ideology has transformed the autonomy of action dimension into autonomy of finance, with the focus on enabling private firms through adjusting incentive structures, rather than taking direct action. Organizations that lack this autonomy become the benefactors of other dominant neoliberal financing institutions, thus furthering the entrenchment of neoliberalism and neoliberal finance. JEL Classification: F53, F55, P16

Section: Neoliberalism and Bureaucratic Autonomymentioning

confidence: 97%

Regional Intergovernmental Organization Response to COVID-19: The Impact of Neoliberalism on Bureaucratic Autonomy

Baranes

Hazen

2022

“…The declining wages and harsh austerity policies turned out to be counterproductive. It did not foster a recovery of the economy, but rather led to other debt risks, deflation, general misery of the population, and impoverishment of the working class (Panageotou 2017; Lapavitsas 2019). The Troika bailout plan prolonged the Greek crisis, and Greece never really stepped out of the crisis until the unexpected shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Debt Expansion Of Crisis In Greecementioning

confidence: 99%

The Greek Crisis Under Structural Constraints

Xie

Wang

Zhi

2023

This article studies the Greek crisis since 2009 with a synthesized Marxian framework by embedding the Greek capital accumulation process into the capitalist core-periphery structure in the European Union, which deteriorated the competitiveness of Greece and adversely impacted its capital accumulation, leading to a relatively low profit rate in the neoliberal era. Institutions of the European Union helped Greece turn to debt-driven accumulation to sustain growth, especially the external debt of government, but the weak productive accumulation because of relatively low profit rate made the accumulation of debt unsustainable in the long run. When doubt was cast on Greece’s capacity to repay its debts, the economy lost external sources of funding, leading to a halt in debt expansion and the burst of the sovereign debt crisis. JEL Classification: E11, F02, O10

“…Ten years after the implementation of profound structural reforms and excessive cuts in social expenditures, the level of Greek public debt remained high, while its GDP still had a long way to recovery. 5 Paradoxical as it may seem, these fallacious views on the economic crisis may serve a different, more intricate purpose that favors the ideals of neoliberal ideology of further disciplining labor and reducing the scope of the public sector (Panageotou 2017).…”

Section: How the Safety Net Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing a Safety Net: The Effects of Neoliberal Policy on Welfare, Poverty, and the Net Social Wage during the Greek Crisis

Missos

2020

The combined effects of internal devaluation and fiscal consolidation policies implemented in Greece between 2010 and 2019 are reflected in substantial levels of income contraction and unequal distribution of the financial burden. Neoliberal policy responses are examined through a safety net that allocates scarce fiscal resources to persons in extreme need, subject to high primary budget surplus targets. The safety net operates in this manner when social pressure upon the worker class intensifies. Further, the essay explores two supplementary aspects. First, a modified measure of poverty using the conventional approach of differentiated income poverty lines is considered. Second, net social wage variations are examined. Results indicate Greek workers have suffered substantially and that neoliberal policies have placed disproportionate burdens on persons most in need.