Contesting Austerity compares the contentious responses to austerity in Portugal and Spain between 2008 and 2015. While in Spain a sustained wave of mobilisation lasted for three years and led to a transformation of the party system, in Portugal social movements mobilised only in specific instances, trade unions dominated protest and institutional change was limited. Contesting Austerity shows that trajectories and outcomes in these countries are linked to the nature and configurations of the players in the mobilisation process. 1. Contesting Austerity is the first book to take a comparative approach of the Portuguese and Spanish anti-austerity mobilisations. While most studies focus on single case studies, this work relies on a paired comparison that provides a broader understanding and contrast of the political processes and mobilization in the two countries. In comparison with Fishman's work (2019) on Portugal and Spain, even if partialy following and in debt with it, this comparison focuses solely on the period of the Great Recession. Moreover, Fishman interprets the events of the cycle of protest through the degree of openeness of institutions to civil society actors and political culture: political discontent is channeled through institutions in Portugal, while in Spain institutional closeness invigorates street politics. Rather Contesting Austerity proposes that the differences result from the degree of autonomy/heteronomy between institutional players and social movements: if in Portugal institutional players curtailed movement actions by interfering in the development of the cycle of protest, in Spain movement autonomy vis-a-vis trade unions and political parties allowed for a reconfiguration of the anti-austerity protest arena. 2. Contesting Austerity combines Contentious Politics with recent developments in social movement theory, namely Players and Arenas. This articulation allows to move away from CP more structural aspects, while keeping a cycle based approach, and introduces the interactions between players as shaping the cycle and the formation of the anti-austerity arena. Most work on the anti-austerity contentious wave tend to focus either on specific events, cases or groups without looking to the full range of forms of contestation. By taking a cycle-based approach, rather than focusing solely on social movements, it looks to the interactions between institutional and non-institutional players. The most distinguished contribution of these book is to show that a variety of players contested austerity and their interactions came to shape the contentious responses to austerity. Each country exhibits a distinct configuration of relation between institutional and non-institutional actors that explain the different outcomes. 3. Contesting Austerity is based on extensive empirical material (media collated database with 4500 protest events; 45 interviews; and secondary data) which provide highly rich descriptions of the cycle of protest in terms of players, claims and repertoires in the two countries that gives a full picture of the mobilisation.
Industry Reviews
"Contesting Austerity is a landmark work. Its innovative perspective highlights how the distinct political cultures of Spain and Portugal shaped reactions to the crisis. A must-read for all interested in Iberian politics and society."
. Pedro Ramos Pinto, Associate Professor in International Economic History, University of Cambridge
"Contesting Austerity brings new insights into how movements and parties interacted in Spain and Portugal during the 'age of austerity'. Anyone interested in understanding the effect of protest in these cases, and more generally in the post-2008 period, can do no better than to turn to this outstanding book."
. David. J. Bailey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham
"This book investigates the Spanish and Portuguese protest cycle in times of austerity. It brings back into social movement studies a debate on capitalism filling a gap in existing literature. With a dynamic view of a complex process in unsettled times, it contributes to the understanding of how the financial crisis and ensuing crisis of legitimacy opened spaces for contentious actors."
. Donatella della Porta, Director of Centre on Social Movements Studies, Scuola Normale Superiore
