ABSTRACT
In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, governments around the developed world coordinated policy moves to stimulate economic activity and avert a depression. In subsequent years, however, cuts to public expenditure, or austerity, have become the dominant narrative in public debate on economic policy.
This unique collaboration between economists and linguists examines manifestations of the discourses of austerity as these have played out in media, policy and academic settings across Europe and the Americas. Adopting a critical perspective, it seeks to elucidate the discursive and argumentation strategies used to consolidate austerity as the dominant economic policy narrative of the twenty-first century.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |14 pages
Introduction
part I|2 pages
Approaching austerity through discourse
chapter 2|16 pages
Austerity and the eclipse of economic alternatives
part II|2 pages
Historical perspective
chapter 3|27 pages
Austerity in the Commons
chapter 4|28 pages
‘Less State’ in austerity
part III|2 pages
The notion of ‘crisis’
chapter 6|24 pages
The recent economic crisis in Brazil and beyond
part IV|2 pages
Metaphors
part V|2 pages
Argumentation
part VI|2 pages
Responses to ‘crisis’