School of Social and Political Science

Description

Austerity became the predominant fiscal policy response to the Great Recession in Europe. After a brief period of 'emergency Keynesianism' from 2008 to 2010, even the center-left abandoned plans for deficit spending and accepted austerity as the dogma of the day. In this seminar, Björn Bremer explains how this came about and explores its political consequences, combining qualitative and quantitative methods and drawing on a wide range of empirical evidence to study both the demand- and supply-side of politics. Although social democratic austerity was not inevitable, powerful feedback effects of the Third Way trapped and divided the center-left during the crisis. This undermined the ability of social democratic parties to oppose austerity and eventually contributed to their electoral crisis in the shadow of the Great Recession.