The Euro-Crisis, EMU and the Perils of Centralisation

European governments, against their initial instincts, invited the International Monetary Fund to design financial rescue programs during the euro crisis in cooperation with the European Commission and European Central Bank. These institutions, known as the “troika,” constitute a regime complex in the parlance of international political economy. This book poses four questions about the regime complex for crisis finance in the euro area: Why did European governments choose this particular mix of institutions? What was the strategy of key member states in directing several institutions to collaborate on lending programs? Why did this arrangement endure despite severe conflicts among the institutions? Should the member states of the euro area “go it alone” by creating a European Monetary Fund? This chapter elaborates on these questions and provides an overview of the book.

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Austerity and fragmentation: Dynamics of Europeanization of media discourses in Greece and Italy

Communications ◽

10.1515/commun-2020-2090 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 45 (s1) ◽

pp. 864-892

Author(s):

Cristiano Bee ◽

Stavroula Chrona

Keyword(s):

Financial Crisis ◽

Qualitative Analysis ◽

National Level ◽

Emergency Situation ◽

Media Representations ◽

Euro Crisis ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Fragmentation Dynamics ◽

Communication Practices ◽

Media Discourses

AbstractThis article investigates media representations of the European financial crisis in Greece and Italy. We study the Euro crisis as an ‘emergency situation’ with domino effects, where media played a central role in shaping communication practices at the national level as well as between the two countries. Drawing upon vertical and horizontal dynamics of Europeanization, we map the convergences and divergences in media discourses that surround the period 2011–2015. In doing so, we elaborate a qualitative analysis of newspaper articles focusing, in particular, on the themes of austerity and the fragmentation of Europe. Our argument suggests that national public spheres in times of transnational crisis become increasingly nationalized; yet under certain circumstances such as when the supranational infrastructure is the target of blame, they converge, opening the path toward a transnational discursive dialogue.

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