Roca et al 2018: Challenging Austerity

Introduction: SMs and radical politics in the Europ periphery - a world-systems analysis

 * p1: explicitly anti-neoliberal narrative: austerity policies in order to dismantle welfare state, transfer private debt to the public, and make profits for "oligarchs"
 * p1/2: book is about: old and esp. newly popular challengers to austerity
 * first, confrontational (anti-state in GR, anti-representative-democr in ES)
 * then, institutionalized/statist (Syriza, Podemos, 5 Stelle, Bloco de Esquerda)
 * p4: Agency/Political strategies act within an economic limitations. This framework is given by economic position in world system: Southern Europe as semi-periphery, Northern Europe as centre (World-Systems-Theory by Wallerstein)
 * p6: accumulating capital needs investment opportunities, e.g. in...
 * productive industry (not enough!)
 * new places (e.g. developing countries)
 * infrastructure (because these long-term big investments can swallow a lot of capital)
 * fictitious values (speculative bubbles)
 * construction (also 'space production' and 'speculative' in a way; for tourism, private housing, etc.; paradigmatic for Southern Europe)
 * 'Understanding social movements'...
 * (please continue on page 7)

Summary

 * 1) describes transitions and course of radical left groups in POR and ES;
 * 2) main argument: radical left rise and fall depends on international developments
 * 3) criticizes rad left (unrealistic, violence failed, electoral failure because sectarian, and POS unfavorable)
 * 4) STYLE: very bad (English mistakes make it hard to read/understand) (in a published book!)
 * 5) ARGUMENTS: somewhat superficial, but usually okay; lots of facts about radical left organizations (founding, activities, demise)

Spain-Portugal parallels until transition:

 * authoritarianism starts in 30s ( v GR: 1967 Cold War coup)
 * 1960s: growth...
 * ...and liberalization:
 * ES: 1967 Ley Orgánico del Estado: "organic democracy"
 * POR: 1968 primavera marcelista
 * early 70s: protests and internal division -> demise

transition, differences:

 * POR: 1974, Apr 25, carnation revolution -> 1,5 years unstable revolutionary period ("PREC")
 * ES: 1974/5 mobilization (parallel to POR revoluton) repressed
 * POR as bad example of unstable and radical-left-dominated revolutionary process => (negotiated?) transition instead of overthrow, continuities and amnesties accepted
 * transitions converge by end of 1975: moderate governments

after transition, parallels again:

 * main left-wing party become social democratic (POR: PS founded in Germany, with SPD help; ES: PSOE refounded, too)
 * lots of different radical left-wing political groups, convergence with demise of USSR:
 * POR: Bloco de Esquerda, 1999: from 2,5% up to 10% in 2009
 * ES: Izquierda Unida, 1986
 * violence of some groups discredited the radical left (see Baby 2012, for their violence)
 * radical left exhausted after fighting dictatorship, gaining democracy, battling post-transition reformism and postmodern whateverism
 * radical left parties without seats before 1999, except UDP (por). pro-Soviet Spanish parties, Basque radical left (p37)