Suchergebnisse

What are the conditions under which the meaning of the signifier 'austerity' might be reworked for environmental ends? Could the concept of 'austerity' describe a mode of living that is compatible with the challenges of working towards transition and degrowth? This article considers what can be learnt from the UK context, in which social actors in environmental and transition politics have – since the early 2000s – elaborated a concept of 'eco-austerity'. This has been achieved via the mobilization of a particular historical period as symbolic resource: the period 1939-54, an era widely known as 'austerity Britain'. Through an evaluation of this activity, the article identifies the significant challenges presented by a project of recasting the meaning of the signifier 'austerity', as well as the possibilities for alternative future-making that may yet be associated with this concept.

We shed light on the function, properties and optimal size of austerity using the standard sovereign debt model augmented to include incomplete information about credit risk. Austerity is defined as the shortfall of consumption from the level desired by a country and supported by its repayment capacity. We find that austerity serves as a tool for securing a more favourable loan package; that it is associated with over-investment even when investment does not create collateral; and that low risk borrowers may favour more to less severe austerity. These findings imply that the amount of fresh funds obtained by a sovereign is not a reliable measure of austerity suffered; and that austerity may actually be associated with higher growth. Our analysis accommodates costly signaling for gaining credibility and also assigns a novel role to spending multipliers in the determination of optimal austerity.

Abstract
We study the optimal debt and investment decisions of a sovereign with private information. The separating equilibrium is characterised by a cap on the current account. A sovereign repays debt amount due that exceeds default costs in order to signal creditworthiness and smooth consumption. Accepting funding conditional on investment/reforms relaxes borrowing constraints, even when investment does not create collateral, but it depresses current consumption. The model contains the signalling elements emphasised by creditors in the Greek austerity programmes and is consistent with the reduction in the loans issued by Greece and their interest rate following the 2015 election.

We present data on eighteen demonstrations against austerity politics. A distinction is made between demonstrations against the austerity measures governments are taking (11) and demonstrations against the governments that are taking these measures (7). In total, 3434 demonstrators completed a survey questionnaire inquiring about demographic characteristics, social and political embeddedness, mobilization channels, satisfaction with the way democracy works in their country, identification and motivation. We propose a theoretical framework for the comparison of participants in the two types of demonstrations. Employing anovas, manovas, and logistic regression analyses hypotheses derived from the theoretical framework are tested. With a proportion of correct classifications of 75.6% our model was able to satisfactorily account for the differences between the two types of demonstrations.

More disheartening than the economic catastrophe in the United States and Europe is that government response is making the crisis worse. The response is austerity, which Mark Blyth, in Austerity, defines as "the policy of cutting the state's budget to promote growth" and which Robert Kuttner, in Debtors' Prison, labels "Agony Economics." Both books—informed, passionate, at times angry—document the failure of austerity, detail the resulting human suffering and untangle the historical and ideological origins of austerity.

This essay presents "fattening austerity" as a new conceptual framework that will enable a collective resistance to austerity politics and fat oppression. Austerity and fatphobia have not, to our knowledge, been analyzed in tandem. But the discourses that uphold both punitive austerity measures and the pathologization of fat people's bodies are deeply imbricated. Austerity and anti-fat stigma each invoke a language of crisis to authorize social practices that inflict hunger and bodily injury upon people who are fat and/or poor. In addition, anti-'obesity' rhetoric and pro-austerity arguments each utilize the neoliberal values of "personal responsibility" and corporeal "choice" to further marginalize people who are poor, fat, or both. We argue that it is incumbent upon the political Left—which thus far has been remiss in challenging the anti-fat prejudice that often animates its own movements—to make fat justice a central part of its critique of austerity.

Polly Toynbee has made a career out of shouting that we must be more like Sweden.UK public spending grew from 38pc of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 to almost 50pc at the height of the 2020 pandemic after Rishi Sunak as chancellor announced huge taxpayer subsidies to pay people's wages during lockdown.Spending has since come down to 44pc of GDP but remains far higher than its pre-pandemic level.And:Sweden has one of the largest public sectors among OECD countries. Government spending was 49.2% of GDP in 2019, the fifth highest in the OECD We have, in these recent years, become very much more like Sweden. It doesn't seem to have made us - or anyone actually - any happier. So, having tried the experiment we find that it doesn't work. At which point that science thing comes into play. Theories are all very well but they must withstand experimental evidence - if they don't then they're failed theories. We have tested this, will being more like Sweden make Britain happier and the answer is no.Ho Hum.It's also possible to wonder about something else. If government spending has risen by 6% of GDP - which is a lot, even a lorra lots - then what is this story about austerity? Seriously, what austerity?

In this article we have tried to analyze "austerity surveillance" (AS), its features, and its functions under the extreme austerity regime in Greece during 2010−2014, before the election of the leftist government. AS is a specific kind of coercive neoliberal surveillance, which in the name of fighting tax evasion and corruption is targeting the middle and lower economic strata and not the rich upper classes. It is based mainly on "coveillance," i.e. citizen-informers' grassing, public naming, and shaming. Functioning as a domination and disciplinary control mechanism of the entire population, it works within a post-democratic setting without accountability or democratic control. We provide empirical evidence of these features and functions, including some indicative personal testimonies of austerity surveillance subjects. After presenting some cases of electronic surveillance as an indispensable supplement to AS, we then briefly underline the negative personal, and socio-political impact of this surveillance. In conclusion, a tentative assessment is made of AS' efficiency in the Greek case, comparing it with other types of past and present authoritarian surveillance in Greece and in other current surveillance societies, considering also the prospects for its abolition or its reproduction by the new leftist government.