Mediating Policy: Greece, Ireland, and Portugal Before the Eurozone Crisis

Amongst the most serious consequences of the 2008 global financial collapse and sovereign debt crisis were a series of unprecedented international bailouts for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal between 2010 and 2011.

This book analyses the development policies of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal between 1990 and 2008, before the Eurozone crisis. It identifies national-level differences between the policy strategies and outcomes that have characterized recent developments in the Greek, Irish, and Portuguese political economies. In addition, it provides an explanation for these differences that takes into account variations in political institutions and state-society relations. In doing so, it locates an explanation for policy divergence in the presence or absence of the policy-making institutions and processes that make up a ‘zone of mediation’. Overall, it argues there is significant variation in the extent to which Ireland, Portugal and Greece have adapted their developmental goals and strategies in order to address the labour market challenges posed by the post-industrial era.

This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of European politics and studies, comparative political economy, public policy/policy studies, and democracy studies.