Friday, March 14, 2014
Committee (Omni Shoreham)
Most current research on the implications of the crisis in Southern Europe have focused on the nation-state. However, we still do not know much about how, why and with what success regional governments have undertaken different types of, mainly costly and unpopular, measures and reforms of the regional public sectors and welfare systems with the aim to address the current situation of aggravated austerity their treasuries are experiencing. This paper seeks to examine the Spanish Autonomous Communities (AC) governments’ strategies to respond to the financial crisis, through different combinations of austerity measures and policy and administrative reform, in order to achieve fiscal consolidation since the onset of the current crisis. Using an analytical framework based on the comparative study of fiscal adjustment and welfare reforms determinants, the paper anlyzes and explains the content, scope and success of regional austerity measures and reforms. Furthermore, it seeks to identify the contextual, political and economic conditions accounting for the different adjustment trajectories regional governments have followed, and more in particular, the strategies they have used to simultaneously pursuing their fiscal consolidation objectives and overcome the unpopularity and political and social opposition those measures have often triggered, which are likely to lead to electoral defeat.
