The Consequences of Crisis for Southern Europe

In recent years, Southern Europe has become a focus of international attention due to the impact of its travails on the eurozone and European governance. This proposal aims to turn the spotlight on the other side of the story, to the effects of the crisis on political processes within the region itself. Southern Europe’s vanguard role in the eurozone crisis and in the radical experiments in financial austerity and structural reform currently under way have turned the region into a laboratory of political change. The crisis and the strategies adopted to address it have unleashed processes of abrupt and rapid dislocation and transformation, redefining priorities, reshaping systems, redesigning policies, replacing actors and breaking down political affiliations. The goal of the Section is to provide a forum for an overall assessment of ‘crisis politics’ in Southern Europe with their broader implications for European democracy. A non-exhaustive list of topics which might be addressed include the impact of ‘governance by Memorandum’ and the politics of austerity on political systems, political actors (e.g. labour unions, civil society), political economy (e.g. varieties of capitalism), policymaking processes, specific policy areas (e.g. welfare regimes, environmental and migration policies) and the consequences of crisis for political participation (e.g. the politics of protest and social mobilisation, party and party system change, public opinion and electoral behaviour). The Section hopes to attract papers encompassing a wide range of topics, theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. In terms of geographical scope, the Section will accept country case studies of the six eurozone states (Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus and Malta) while intra-South European comparative studies will be particularly welcome. Such comparisons could potentially include Turkey, a state relatively unaffected by the international economic crisis.