Political Economy of the Greek Crisis

Abstract

The Greek turmoil commenced as a balance of payments, or "sudden stop", crisis induced by large current account and primary government deficits. It became an economic and social disturbance of historic proportions. Its proximate cause was loss of competitiveness within the Eurozone due primarily to domestic German wage policies. The bail-out policies, imposed by the lenders primarily for reasons of Eurozone stability and adopted by Greece, have had disastrous effects on both economy and society. The "historical bloc" that dominates Greek society willingly submitted to this strategy, losing sovereignty, for reasons including fear and identity.

Greece’s economy during the crisis 2007-2008 and its development prospects

“…This is why the full literature review was done inside the article. For example Szymanik (2003) wrote about historical problems, Samitas and Tsakalos (2013), Mavridis (2018), Lapavitsas (2019) and Górniewicz (2014) about economical problems (affection the European economy). Main info are published in the reports of the international organisations (Eurostat, 2020;OECD, 2020;Societe Generale, 2020).…”

Geographies of politics and the police: Post-democratization, SYRIZA, and the politics of the “Greek debt crisis”

“…It is these transitional unities that make SYRIZA's government trajectory important from the perspective of democratic politics and not just the electoral win of a left populist party. For many on the left -including SYRIZA MPs who rejected the deal -the signing of the third memorandum was a foregone conclusion given SYRIZA's leadership commitment to stay within the Eurozone (Lapavitsas, 2019;Stravelakis, 2015). For others, the memorandum resulted from the balance of political forces in Europe; a balance that SYRIZA's strategy was aiming to tip toward the easing of austerity policies (Douzinas, 2015).…”

“…References to the 'There Is No Alternative' dogma became often as MPs and Ministers struggled to legitimize the implementation of policies they were opposing just a few months before (Sevastakis, 2015). Seemingly vindicating the argument that Eurozone membership was synonymous with austerity policies (Lapavitsas, 2019), SYRIZA's turn further foreclosed the horizon of possibility for democratic politics by seeking legitimacy in arguing that the government was doing 'what [was] required by strict necessity' (Rancière, 1999:113).In this setting, SYRIZA's key proposal became the implementation of austerity with a social face while also expanding social and civil rights and fighting against corruption (Katsourides, 2016). When efforts to alleviate austerity were met with hostility by the creditors and progressive social reforms toned down to maintain the governing coalition with ANEL, the anti-corruption discourse, while addressing deep-seated problems, gradually shifted the discursive terrain into a moralizing field that further foreclosed the possibilities for politicizing the crisis.…”

“…References to the “There Is No Alternative” dogma became often as MPs and Ministers struggled to legitimize the implementation of policies they were opposing just a few months before (Sevastakis, 2015). Seemingly vindicating the argument that Eurozone membership was synonymous with austerity policies (Lapavitsas, 2019), SYRIZA’s turn further foreclosed the horizon of possibility for democratic politics by seeking legitimacy in arguing that the government was doing “what [was] required by strict necessity” (Rancière, 1999: 113). In this setting, SYRIZA’s key proposal became the implementation of austerity with a social face while also expanding social and civil rights and fighting against corruption (Katsourides, 2016).…”

Accumulation by dispossession and hegemony in place: The Greek experience

“…Lapavitsas et al 2018;Vatikiotis et al 2010;Vergopoulos 2017). Lapavitsas (2010Lapavitsas ( , 2019, for example, finds the roots of the crisis not merely in the country's weak competitiveness or its domestic structural problems but also in unequal power structures within the Eurozone, imbalances and uneven trade relations between the core and the periphery in EMU. Two broad lines of policy proposals stem from this perspective, taking the form either of radical measures (e.g.…”