The crisis as opportunity? On the role of the Troika in constructing the European consolidation state

Abstract

The 2008 financial crisis has been seen as providing an opportunity for core eurozone members to push neoliberal policies onto the periphery in order to construct a European consolidation state. We adapt a policy transfer model to examine the extent to which the Troika transferred neoliberal policy onto Greece and Ireland. The size of the ideological gap between Troika policies and those embedded in the peripheral country was crucial when explaining why the Troika's policies were more brutal, intrusive and long-lasting in Greece than in Ireland, and why Greece proved more resilient to attempts to transfer policy than Ireland.