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Conclusion: Peripheral P.I.G.S. in the last chance saloon…

Sustainable Politics and the Crisis of the Peripheries: Ireland and Greece

ISBN: 978-0-85724-761-2, eISBN: 978-0-85724-762-9

Publication date: 21 November 2011

Abstract

The events of the summer of 2011 have affected the international financial sector immeasurably, with concerns about defaults in Spain and Italy, and the United States. The United States was further rocked by a downgrading of its triple A status by the rating agency Standards and Poor. In the preceding weeks, news that a deal had been reached which would provide the second bailout for Greece was greeted with relief across the financial world. However, the fiscal crisis which had threatened the very future of the Eurozone was not addressed by this intervention. In Ireland, the news that interest rates for their bailout would be reduced with a longer time for payback was also seen as welcome, allowing for a domestic budget that would not be so austere as to prohibit growth. However, both Greece and Ireland remain peripheral nations in the ongoing fiscal crisis which has destabilised the global financial sector. A political solution to this fiscal crisis appears beyond the capabilities of elected officials who are caught between populist electoral concerns about austerity measures and a neo-liberal fixation with credit related growth, the basis of which underpins ‘the casino capitalism’ of the global investment markets.

Citation

Leonard, L. and Botetzagias, I. (2011), "Conclusion: Peripheral P.I.G.S. in the last chance saloon…", Leonard, L. and Botetzagias, I. (Ed.) Sustainable Politics and the Crisis of the Peripheries: Ireland and Greece (Advances in Ecopolitics, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-220. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2041-806X(2011)0000008014

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited