The debt crisis and austerity in the Eurozone: social and political impacts

During the past six years, the countries of the European periphery – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain – have been experiencing severe economic-financial crises. In the shadow of these drastic events, the EU institutions and the IMF initiated “bailout programs” for these countries on conditions of austerity and structural reforms.
This interesting volume The Debt Crisis in the Eurozone: Social Impacts, edited by Nicholas P. Petropoulos and George O. Tsobanoglou, encompasses articles of 20 scholars – sociologists, political economists and scientists, social demographers – which delve into the causes and the social impacts of this crisis. Using both theoretical and empirical tools, the volume also provides an excellent background for a better comprehension of the dynamics of structural and political changes now taking place within the European Union.
The social impacts cover a range of consequences, including poverty, unemployment, anti-migrant attitudes, a decline of welfare and health indicators, post-traumatic stress disorders, national humiliation, political alienation and social protest. The authors analyse the “international” and the “domestic” causes of the crisis, while some of them underline the importance of both factors.
In the 1st chapter, for example, Brigitte Young discusses the role of German Ordoliberalism and politics in the crisis (open access). In the 2nd chapter, J. Magnus Ryner analyzes Eurozone crisis management in the context of European Monetary Union (open access, partly). In the concluding chapter, the editors undertake a synthesis of the previous chapters, and extract a number of policy recommendations that – if adopted – could transform the current financial crisis into a growth-opportunity for the European Union and its member states.