&quot;Je compte, donc je pense&quot; The austerity idea as a lifebelt for a failed hegemony

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International Studies (BA)

Baljet, Jacco-Pepijn (2016)

"Je compte, donc je pense" The austerity idea as a lifebelt for a failed hegemony

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

This thesis seeks to analyze why austerity as an instrument and as an idea is still predominant within the European Union. It does so by combining economic and political perspectives of the Eurozone-crisis. The structural imbalances view of the Eurozone-crisis in particular plays an important role in this analysis. It can convincingly be argued that the Eurozone-crisis has, more or less successfully, been socially constructed as a sovereign debt-crisis of the European demand-led periphery. Instead, the view held in this thesis is that there is a triple complicity in the Eurozone-crisis: the demand-led periphery,the export-led core and the surrounding macroeconomic environment of the Eurozone.

Austerity

Eurozone-crisis

Neo-Gramscian hegemony

Critical Theory

Institutionalism

Structural Imbalances

Hobson

Depoliticization

Social Constructivism