Austerity: The Lived Experience

Bryan M. Evans, Stephen McBride, and their contributors delve further into the more practical, ground-level side of the austerity equation in Austerity: The Lived Experience. Economically, austerity policies cannot be seen to work in the way elite interests claim that they do. Rather than soften the blow of the economic and financial crisis of 2008 for ordinary citizens, policies of austerity slow growth and lead to increased inequality. While political consent for such policies may have been achieved, it was reached amidst significant levels of disaffection and strong opposition to the extremes of austerity. The authors build their analysis in three sections, looking alternatively at theoretical and ideological dimensions of the lived experience of austerity; how austerity plays out in various public sector occupations and policy domains; and the class dimensions of austerity. The result is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of austerity politics and policies. Contents: Austerity as lived experience: An introduction / Bryan Evans and Stephen McBride. Pt. 1. Theory and ideology. Introduction: Manufacturing the common sense of austerity / Bryan Evans and McBride -- Articulating austerity and authoritarianism: Re-imagining moral economies? / John Clarke -- Speaking austerity: Policy rhetoric and design beyond fiscal consolidation / Sorin Mitrea -- No deal capitalism: Austerity and the unmaking of the North American middle class / Eric Pineault -- Framing the economic case for Austerity: The “expansionary fiscal contraction hypothesis” / Ellen Russell. Pt. 2. Impact and consequences. Introduction: Austerity on the ground / Evans and McBride -- Care and control in long term care work / Donna Baines -- ‘Negotiate your way back to zero’: Teacher bargaining and austerity in Ontario, Canada / Brendan A. Sweeny and Robert S. Hickey -- Austerity and the low wage economy: Living and other wages / Bryan Evans, Stephen McBride, and Jacob Muirhead -- Immigration in an age of austerity: Morality, the welfare state and the shaping of the ideal migrant / Susan Barrass and John Shields -- Pension reforms in the context of the global financial crisis: A reincarnation of pension privatization through austerity / Yanqiu Rachel Zhou and Shih-Jiun Shi. Pt. 3. Class, resistance, alternative. Introduction: The old strategies don’t work. So what’s possible? / Bryan Evans and Stephen McBride -- From austerity to structural reform: The erosion of the European social model(s) / Christophe Hermann -- Austerity of imagination: Quebec’s struggles in translating resistance into alternatives / Peter Graefe and Hubert Rioux -- Social democracy and social pacts: Austerity alliances and their consequences / Bryan Evans -- Austerity and political crisis: The radical left, the far right and Europe’s new authoritarian order / Neil Burron -- Conclusion.