Political Cycles

A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian discusses “the Cold War, political parties, the presidency, and many broader philosophical issues [with] incisive wit” (Library Journal).

The economic policies of reactive states such as Turkey and Greece, both of which have shown limited ability to implement institutional reforms in recent years, have paved the way for deep crises. The crises are devastating for both societies’ social fabric, but they also open up the opportunity to introduce new economic regimes. They do, however, not always invite changes in dominant paradigms. Despite weak state capacity and deep economic crisis in both cases, substantial reforms were initiated in Turkey whilst an opposite trend prevailed in Greece. Drawing on field research, this book develops a political economy framework that explains reform cycles and post-crisis outcomes in reactive states.

This edited volume explores the context in which the Spanish party Podemos operates as both an agent and product of political cycles. It provides an account of the party’s genealogy, ideological environment and relation

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the on-going Greek debt crisis. It identifies and explains Greece’s idiosyncratic weaknesses, and highlights the existing rigidities in the EU architecture that make the recovery prospects of the Greek economy challenging.