When the party's over: the politics of fiscal squeeze in perspective

Convenors:
Professor Christopher Hood CBE FBA, University of Oxford
Professor David Heald, University of Aberdeen

In today’s era of fiscal austerity, fiscal consolidation and spending cutbacks dominate the politics of many of the world’s democracies. Street protests, rule by ‘econocrats’ and draconian policy shifts dictated by – or blamed on – international creditors have become commonplace. Old political alignments are being tested and new battles are emerging over whose expectations are to be disappointed and who should be blamed for fiscal squeeze.

This conference explores how the politics of fiscal squeeze has played out in different times and places, looking in depth at nine cases of fiscal squeeze at different times and places, exploring what conclusions we can draw for current debates about fiscal squeeze from earlier cases in other democracies.

Programme, speaker biographies and abstracts (PDF file - 222 KB)