ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates the central aspects of the European crisis. The crisis in Europe is often discussed as a crisis of European integration or a crisis of national economies within Europe. Combining the critical political economy approaches and post-Keynesian perspectives allows for a systematic understanding of the economic and political dimensions of the crisis. Both, critical political economy (CPE) and post-Keynesian (PK) perspectives represent important strands of alternative, heterodox, traditions in the social sciences, and provide a more adequate basis for systematically reflecting on possible paths of future European development. The concept of financialization and also the regulation approach turned out to provide important links which combined insights from PK and CPE. Also, both approaches point to the importance of the global economic and financial structures and the Euro in explaining dynamics of European integration.
