Frieder Otto Wolf: Reflection on the Case Studies

1. What do I want (and not necessarily expect) from case studies?

They should help us to become aware of complexity and even excess – where reality goes beyond the effects of over-determined structures, showing us, how a specified, singular society evolves under the impact of strategic interventions (of neo-liberal policies which follow a general pattern, while varying it). In these cases, the case studies should exhibit, how the singular societies of Eastern Europe have evolved under More

Frieder Otto Wolf: Reflections on the 1. Day

We have tried to address the problems posed by conceiving a modern left wing policy in Europe and in the EU, specifically reflecting its dynamic global context, and trying to reflect recent experiences adequately, while establishing a theoretical basis for a critical approach to them.
The task formulated by Judith Dellheim in the “Opening” had been to clarify the global context and the theoretical basis of the discussion. She had asked the workshop More

Sergio Tzotzes: The Case of Greece: Labour Market Reforms as Neoliberal Discipline in the European Periphery

This paper examines the dismantling of labour market institutions in Greece along neoliberal imperatives that was explicitly imposed by the loan conditionality of the IMF/EU/ECB adjustment programme. The mainstream public and academic discourse presents Greece as an exceptional isolated incident or a Greek disease where harsh adjustment was required to save the country from bankruptcy. Failing, to elucidate the structural aspects and the contradictions underlying the capitalist crisis, mainstream accounts also obscure the true nature, the aims and the implications of the labour market restructuring ongoing in Greece. More

Joachim Becker: Enlarging the EU Sphere of Influence Eastwards – Or: The Dialectics of Integration and Disintegration

In the face of the austerity-induced depression of the domestic markets in the EU, the EU and its main powers bank on the expansion of economic relations beyond the EU and free trade agreements. The coalition agreement of social democrats and Christian democrats in Germany, the dominant EU power, is characteristic of this thinking. It is extremely brief and unimaginative in its paragraphs on the EU, but dedicates detailed and highlighted paragraphs on the Germany’s economic relationship with so-called emerging economies and on EU free trade agreements More

Daniela Gabor: The Romanian Financial System: From Central Bank-Led to Dependent Financialisation

This study argues that financialisation is not a phenomenon exclusively associated with complex innovation in highly developed financial markets. Financialisation also affects countries with „shallow“ financial markets but with a significant presence of transnational financial actors that become a powerpul economic and political force able to navigate and shape uneven regulatory and institutional terrains in order to sustain new modes of profit generation. The study distinguishes two stages in the financialisation of the Romanian economy. The first, central bank dominated. Weiterlesen