IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cuswps/oek32.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The "eternal character" of austerity measures in European crisis policies: Evidences from the Fiscal Compact discourse in Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Pühringer, Stephan

Abstract

The European Fiscal Compact (FC) entered into force by 1 January, 2013 in 25 EU Member States. With the ratification the signatory countries commit significant parts of their budget to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, which indicates a shift of power from legislative to executive authorities and the judiciary. In the aftermath of the economic crisis there can be observed a strong tendency to interpret the financial and economic crisis mainly as a sovereign debt crisis without any connection to the preceding crisis. This is reflected in several recommendations, which limit the scope of political decision-making in order to "calm financial markets". Applying an analysis of the public discourse about FC in three leading Austrian newspapers from December 2011 (the initial debate at an EU Summit) to July 2012 (the ratification in the Austrian parliament), the dominant rationale as well as legitimization and argumentation patterns will be examined. The methodology adopted in the article is based on a combination of critical discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory in order to illustrate the effectiveness of marketradical thinking of specific economic elites in public discourse. It can be shown that the public discourse about economic policies yet in a time of a potential "crisis of economics" is still dominated by economic ideas or "economic imaginaries" (implicitly) preferring austerity measures to active fiscal policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Pühringer, Stephan, 2017. "The "eternal character" of austerity measures in European crisis policies: Evidences from the Fiscal Compact discourse in Austria," Working Paper Serie des Instituts für Ökonomie Ök-32, Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung (HfGG), Institut für Ökonomie.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cuswps:oek32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/196157/1/oek32.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Achim Truger, 2013. "Austerity in the euro area: the sad state of economic policy in Germany and the EU," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 10(2), pages 158-174.
    2. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h8493edcn is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Charlotte Rommerskirchen, 2015. "Debt and Punishment: Market Discipline in the Eurozone," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 752-782, October.
    4. Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller, 2017. "The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 904-928, September.
    5. Achim Truger & Henner Will, 2013. "The German “debt brake”: a shining example for European fiscal policy?," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 153-188.
    6. De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2014. "How much Fiscal Discipline in a Monetary Union?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 348-360.
    7. Paul De Grauwe & Yuemei Ji, 2013. "From Panic-Driven Austerity to Symmetric Macroeconomic Policies in the Eurozone," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51, pages 31-41, September.
    8. Catherine Mathieu & Henri Sterdyniak, 2010. "European Debt Crisis and Fiscal Exit Strategies," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01069426, HAL.
    9. Pilkington Marc & Christine Sinapi, 2014. "Crisis Perception in Financial Media Discourse: a Concrete Application through the Minskian/Mainstream Opposition," Post-Print halshs-01228626, HAL.
    10. Blyth, Mark, 2013. "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199828302.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h8493edcn is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bob Jessop, 2013. "Recovered imaginaries, imagined recoveries: a cultural political economy of crisis construals and crisis management in the North Atlantic financial crisis," Chapters, in: Mats Benner (ed.), Before and Beyond the Global Economic Crisis, chapter 12, pages 234-254, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Philip R. Lane, 2012. "The European Sovereign Debt Crisis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 49-68, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller, 2017. "The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 904-928, September.
    2. Philipp Heimberger, 2024. "Fiscal consolidation and its growth effects in euro area countries: Past, present and future outlook," FMM Working Paper 109-2024, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    3. Kapeller, Jakob & Gräbner, Claudius & Heimberger, Philipp, 2019. "Economic polarisation in Europe: Causes and policy options," ifso working paper series 5, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    4. Philipp Heimberger, 2018. "The Dynamic Effects of Fiscal Consolidation Episodes on Income Inequality," wiiw Working Papers 147, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    5. Heimberger, Philipp, 2023. "This time truly is different: The cyclical behaviour of fiscal policy during the Covid-19 crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Philipp Heimberger, 2020. "The dynamic effects of fiscal consolidation episodes on income inequality: evidence for 17 OECD countries over 1978–2013," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 53-81, February.
    7. Achim Truger, 2015. "The Fiscal Compact, Cyclical Adjustment and the Remaining Leeway for Expansionary Fiscal Policies in the Euro Area," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 62(2), pages 157-175, June.
    8. Steininger, Lea & Hesse, Casimir, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 357, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Achim Truger, 2015. "Implementing the golden rule for public investment in Europe," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 138, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    10. Karsten Kohler & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2022. "Growing differently? Financial cycles, austerity, and competitiveness in growth models since the Global Financial Crisis," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1314-1341, July.
    11. Karl Beyer & Stephan Puehringer, 2019. "Divided we stand? Professional consensus and political conflict in academic economics," ICAE Working Papers 94, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    12. Ivo Arnold, 2021. "An Interest Stabilisation Mechanism to Unburden the ECB," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(5), pages 274-277, September.
    13. Lea Steininger & Casimir Hesse, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp357, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    14. Andreas Eisl, 2020. "The Ambiguous Consensus on Fiscal Rules," Working Papers hal-03053976, HAL.
    15. Orsola Costantini, 2020. "The Eurozone as a Trap and a Hostage: Obstacles and Prospects of the Debate on European Fiscal Rules," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 55(5), pages 284-291, September.
    16. Eisl, Andreas, 2020. "The ambiguous consensus on fiscal rules: How ideational ambiguity has facilitated social democratic parties' support of structural deficit rules in the eurozone," MaxPo Discussion Paper Series 20/4, Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo).
    17. Philipp Heimberger & Andreas Lichtenberger, 2023. "RRF 2.0: A Permanent EU Investment Fund in the Context of the Energy Crisis, Climate Change and EU Fiscal Rules," wiiw Policy Notes 63, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    18. Claudius Gräbner & Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller & Bernhard Schütz, 2017. "Is Europe disintegrating? Macroeconomic divergence, structural polarization, trade and fragility," Economics working papers 2017-15, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    19. Reinout A van der Veer & Markus Haverland, 2018. "Bread and butter or bread and circuses? Politicisation and the European Commission in the European Semester," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(3), pages 524-545, September.
    20. Stephan Puehringer & Laura Porak & Johanna Rath, 2021. "Talking about competition? Discursive shifts in the economic imaginary of competition in public debates," ICAE Working Papers 123, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    austerity; critical discourse analysis; metaphor analysis; economic imaginaries; Fiscal Compact; Austria;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B19 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Other
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cuswps:oek32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hfgg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.