This book explains why governments respond differently to macroeconomic problems and why necessary reforms are sometimes delayed until a serious financial crisis erupts. It argues that voter vulnerability to different reform strategies varies, and that these vulnerabilities influence the type and timing of governments' policy responses to economic crises. Empirical analyses at both the individual level across a broad range of countries and case studies of national policy responses to financial and economic crises in Asia and Eastern Europe support the argument.

In the 1980s some developing countries adopted orthodox market-oriented policies in response to international economic crises, others experimented with alternative programs, and still others failed to develop coherent adjustment strategies of any sort. Building on the case studies in Economic Crisis and Policy Choice, these essays offer comparative analysis of these divergent experiences with macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment. Barbara Stallings and Miles Kahler explore the external pressures on governments. Peter Evans and John Waterbury examine the role of the state in the adjustment process, Evans through the lens of earlier historical experience with economic restructuring, Waterbury by focusing on the politics of privatization. Joan Nelson analyzes the politics of income distribution in the adjustment process, and Haggard and Kaufman investigate the political correlates of inflation and stabilization. A final essay assesses the prospects for combining market-oriented reforms with political democratization.

The book sheds new light on the history of the Eurozone crisis and provides crucial lessons for the way forward.

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The current financial and sovereign debt crisis of the European Union and the United States can be regarded as the most recent of a wave of financial and sovereign debt crises that have affected different regions of the world over the past quarter century. While there is a large and growing body of literature on the economic aspects of financial crises, its political elements remain surprisingly under-studied. Moments of Truth: The Politics of Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective fills this gap in the literature by looking at the political repercussions and policy implications of financial crises in comparative perspective, using case studies in Latin America, Korea, and Russia, as well as the contemporary crises in the US and in key European countries. Contributors to this volume look at the crises as critical junctures that generate high levels of uncertainty while calling for decisive action. The chapters emphasize structural or agency based explanations and give relevance to the role of ideas, interests, and institutions in explaining different outcomes. The questions addressed by the case studies include: how the crises were defined by key actors, the range of political and policy options available to deal with their impact, the role of ideas in policy shifts, how political and economic actors redefine their interests in contexts of uncertainty, how political institutions mediate reactions to the crises, what explains the choice of a certain option over other alternatives, and whether the crisis has (so far) resulted in significant political and policy changes or in incremental adjustments to the status quo. The first book to comparatively analyze the political dimensions of financial crises across different global regions, Moments of Truth will be highly significant for any scholars interested in the contemporary debate on financial crises.

The acute economic pressures of the 1980s have forced virtually all of Latin America and Africa and some countries in Asia into painful austerity programs and difficult economic reforms. Scholars have intensively analyzed the economics of this situation, but they have given much less attention to the political forces involved. In this volume a number of eminent contributors analyze the politics of adjustment in thirteen countries and nineteen governments, drawing comparisons not only across the full set of cases but also within clusters selected to clarify specific issues. Why do some governments respond promptly to signs of economic trouble, while others muddle indecisively for years? Why do some confine their response to temporary macroeconomic measures, while others adopt broader, even sweeping, programs of reform? What leads some countries to experiment with heterodox approaches, while most, however reluctantly, pursue orthodox courses? Why, confronted with intense political protest, have some governments persisted while others have altered or abandoned course? The answers to these questions are political, not economic, and they are examined here by Thomas M. Callaghy, Stephan Haggard, Miles Kahler, Robert R. Kauman, Joan M. Nelson, and Barbara Stallings.

This open access book discusses financial crisis management and policy in Europe and Latin America, with a special focus on equity and democracy. Based on a three-year research project by the Jean Monnet Network, this volume takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach, analyzing both the role and impact of the EU and regional organizations in Latin America on crisis management as well as the consequences of crisis on the process of European integration and on Latin America’s regionalism. The book begins with a theoretical introduction, exploring the effects of the paradigm change on economic policies in Europe and in Latin America and analyzing key systemic aspects of the unsustainability of the present economic system explaining the global crises and their interconnections. The following chapters are divided into sections. The second section explores aspects of regional governance and how the economic and financial crises were managed on a macro level in Europe and Latin America. The third and fourth sections use case studies to drill down to the impact of the crises at the national and regional levels, including the emergence of political polarization and rise in populism in both areas. The last section presents proposals for reform, including the transition from finance capitalism to a sustainable real capitalism in both regions and at the inter-regional level of EU-LAC relations.The volume concludes with an epilogue on financial crises, regionalism, and domestic adjustment by Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Written by an international network of academics, practitioners and policy advisors, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students interested in macroeconomics, comparative regionalism, democracy, and financial crisis management as well as politicians, policy advisors, and members of national and regional organizations in the EU and Latin America.