Diagnosis, treatment, and effects of the crisis in Greece: A 'special case' or a 'test case'?

This paper discusses the management of the crisis in Greece, arguing that it was based on a series of diagnoses that justified fiscal discipline by stigmatizing the Greek economy and society, and that it had a narrow understanding of the reasons for Greece's deteriorating competitiveness. I begin by critically examining a series of diagnoses that take a 'rent-seeking' approach as a common starting point. I then argue that the chosen treatment of 'internal devaluation' was based on questionable perceptions of labor costs and public expenditure during the pre-crisis period in Greece, a treatment which then aggravated recession. I follow up with an overview of the socio-political consequences of the crisis (unemployment, poverty, social deregulation, rise of neofascism). In conclusion, I point to the premises of methodological nationalism, both in neoliberal and neo-Keynesian understandings of the crisis. Such views disregard the fact that states have prioritized the strengthening of the global financial system and its rescue in times of crisis, as well as the process of a deepening neoliberalism within the EU - even at a constitutional level through the Fiscal Compact - in which management of the Greek crisis has been inscribed.