tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1331441403058020963.post470052594476448478..comments2024-03-28T06:49:24.930-04:00Comments on International Political Economy at the University of North Carolina: Austerity Politics: Materialism vs. Ideationalism in the EurozoneThomas Oatleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14092437150746625670noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1331441403058020963.post-44044970140080257932013-03-08T23:56:41.390-05:002013-03-08T23:56:41.390-05:00I have read his prior work, and I like a lot of it...I have read his prior work, and I like a lot of it. In general I support his research agenda, esp the more Polanyi-ish stuff. I don't mean to suggest that he doesn't think this stuff is distributional in nature (although, on re-reading my post I can see how I could have left that impression). <br /><br />What I'm really driving at is that I don't really see what his contribution is w/r/t austerity: I can explain the political response to the eurozone crisis by reference to materialist causes. In fact, *he* does so as well, at least in this lecture. Except then he veers off and says that we can't understand it without an accompanying ideational history. <br /><br />But... he does! The establishment of the euro led to lending from eurocore to europeriphery, the crisis leads to recession, the recession leads to (private) defaults, which leads to pressures on sovereign budgets. That leads to bargaining b/t the euro economies which have money (or can borrow it) and those which don't. The ones who have it demand concessions in exchange for lending it: austerity.<br /><br />Blyth suggests that something in that last step is ludicrous, but I can't see what. Someone has to pay, nobody wants to, they bargain over terms. This is a materialist story. <br /><br />The answer seems to be that Blyth thinks that everyone was persuaded by expansionary austerity. This certainly wasn't true in the past, and I'm not convinced (from the evidence I've seen him present so far) that it's true now. If it was, there wouldn't be any need to bargain; everyone would agree. And we don't need it to explain how the preferences of Germany and Greece diverged. <br /><br />Maybe there's more in the book.<br /><br />I have a post coming, probably on Monday, which will discuss this further in light of Farrell's review.Kindred Winecoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14330671232391851377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1331441403058020963.post-46044323719182394192013-03-08T22:39:16.159-05:002013-03-08T22:39:16.159-05:00DIdn't know about this until it got backlinked...DIdn't know about this until it got backlinked on CT. If you've read Blyth's earlier work, it is quite clear that he views these issues as explicitly distributional. Dan Nexonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14802717151098392988noreply@blogger.com