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How Governments Retrench In Crisis: The Case of Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Niamh Hardiman

    (UCD Geary Institute, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin)

  • Muiris MacCarthaigh

    (School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queens University Belfast)

Abstract

The Irish experience of fiscal retrenchment under crisis conditions poses new questions of governance, the evolving answers to which are likely to involve importance changes in the state’s organizational profile and in its policy competences. The government is required to formulate and implement extremely tough choices, particularly since Ireland entered an EU-IMF loan programme in November 2010. Yet government does retain some policy discretion in the priorities it adopts in the composition of budget adjustment and in the distributive impact of cuts. This paper sets out to explore where the adjustments have been made through examination both of the composition of budgets and of the organizational configuration of state institutions, and it analyses how these outcomes can be accounted for. The paper draws upon a new official database setting out a detailed compositional analysis of Irish public spending between 2008 and 2012, and upon the Irish State Administration Database (http://isad.ie) through which the organizational aspects of the state's policy capacity can be analysed.

Suggested Citation

  • Niamh Hardiman & Muiris MacCarthaigh, 2013. "How Governments Retrench In Crisis: The Case of Ireland," Working Papers 201315, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201315
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Michelle Norris & Michael Byrne, 2016. "Social housing's role in the Irish property boom and bust," Working Papers 201615, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    2. Michelle Norris & Michael Byrne, 2017. "Housing Market Volatility,Stability and Social Rented Housing: comparing Austria and Ireland during the global financial crisis," Working Papers 201705, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    3. Dorothy Watson & Christopher T. Whelan & Bertrand Maître & Helen Russell, 2018. "Social Class and Conversion Capacity: Deprivation Trends in the Great Recession in Ireland," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 549-570, November.
    4. Michael Byrne & Michelle Norris, 2018. "Procyclical Social Housing and the Crisis of Irish Housing Policy: Marketization, Social Housing, and the Property Boom and Bust," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 50-63, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ireland; Retrenchment; Public Administration; fiscal politics; economic crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

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