The 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent austerity measures have given a great push for research related to gender issues. These studies indicate a link between austerity measures and gender...Show moreThe 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent austerity measures have given a great push for research related to gender issues. These studies indicate a link between austerity measures and gender effects. In line with these contributions, this research will present a study on Spain as an exemplary case for the interrelatedness of gender and austerity measures in the period 2008-2014. By analysing whether gender perspectives were taken into account in austerity measures on both the labour market and welfare policies, it is shown that gender perspective were rarely included. Additionally, the second part of the analysis focusses on the actual status of gender to see the effect of this lack of a gender perspective in the austerity measures. This gives a dual answer, whereby gender differences are not visible for all used labour market indicators. In general, this research shows the complexity of the austerity measures situation from a feminist GPE perspective, which results in an advise of incorporating gender perspectives on a regular basis as policy-makers, in order to be able to take gender and gender effects better into account in future economic policy-making.Show less
Abstract. Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and the formation of the EMU, the Eurozone has progressively transformed into a political economic regime characterised by stringent fiscal...Show moreAbstract. Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and the formation of the EMU, the Eurozone has progressively transformed into a political economic regime characterised by stringent fiscal discipline and the legalised enforcement of austerity on its member states. Within the literature on the political economy of austerity various competing explanations have been given for this transformation. This thesis will explore the limits of these accounts through a case study of the political economy of the Netherlands over the past decade. Based on the findings of this case, it will argue that current accounts on the rise of austerity fail to properly account for its emergence because they do not properly account for the political elements of its implementation and execution. Consequently, this thesis will explain the rise of austerity by combining a critical political economy approach with a state-centric perspective. In order to so, it will demonstrate the historically politicised nature of austerity through a historiography of one of its most ardent supporters, the Netherlands. Finally, it will explain this Dutch position by arguing that the production of austerity has historically been a political strategy employed by certain state actors within the context of a Weberian market struggle over the structure of the European Monetary Union.Show less
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...Show moreThis 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.Show less
