Commissioned Book Review: Catherine Moury, Stella Ladi, Daniel Cardoso and Angie Gago Capitalising on Constraint. Bailout Politics in Eurozone Countries
| Author | Amandine Crespy |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221112869 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(1) NP5 –NP6
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1112869PSW0010.1177/14789299221112869Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2022
Commissioned Book Review
Capitalising on Constraint. Bailout Politics
in Eurozone Countries by Catherine Moury,
Stella Ladi, Daniel Cardoso and Angie Gago.
Manchester University, 2021, 216 pp., £80.00,
ISBN: 978-1-5261-4988-6.
Over the past decade, a lot has been said and
written on the European response to the finan-
cial and debt crisis of 2008–2010, about socio-
economic conditionality attached to bailouts
provided by the so-called Troika (i.e. the
International Monetary Fund together with
the European Central Bank and the European
Commission), its rationale and its effects. And
yet, Capitalising on Constraint features a
unique research effort carrying out a system-
atic investigation of the politics of bailouts and
conditionality in Greece, Ireland, Portugal,
Spain and Cyprus. More specifically, the vol-
ume does not only include all relevant country
case studies; it also covers a long time frame:
while most observers and researchers have
focused on the heat of the Eurocrisis (2010–
2014), Moury, Ladi, Cardoso and Gago cover a
long time frames going from 2007 to 2019.
This allows them to investigate how the bail-
outs have been negotiated and implemented in
the five countries as well as, critically, what
happened after the programmes were ended
and how national policymakers decided to
deal with the legacy of conditionality and the
reforms forced upon societies in the name of
the Monetary Union.
From a methodological point of view, the
book is based on case studies fed by semi-
structured elite interviews combined with pro-
cess tracing. Capitalising on Constraint is a
perfect example that, when done with rigour,
comparative case study research remains as key
as compelling in order to address ambitious
research questions involving macro processes
and cross-national comparison. Furthermore,
the introduction sets a straightforward and bold
tone by questioning some of the academic
common sense, namely, that bailout politics
have been about political subjection of credi-
tors towards debtors.
In a nutshell, their argument is that bail-
out politics have been co-shaped by domes-
tic elites who have been instrumental in
designing bailouts so as to pass reforms they
had been unable to adopt in the past. They
enjoyed leverage vis-à-vis creditors and EU
technocrats notably due to inside expertise.
Similarly, implemented reforms have been
reversed only if they were seen as electorally
rewarding for new governments. And over-
all, this has happened in a limited number of
instances.
Notwithstanding the high quality of the
account, three aspects of the book can be dis-
cussed critically here. First, it is striking how
the first introductory chapter refrains from
anchoring the book in a specific theoretical
approach. The claim that ‘domestic politics
matter’ can theref ore be interpreted in different
ways. As much as this can be seen as problem-
atic, it also has the advantage to leave the book
open to various interpretations. The approach
seems prima facie fairly rationalistic with the
elements such as cost–benefit reasoning from
domestic elites, the strategic use of expertise,
the bargaining context and a number of hard
material and economic indicators being
emphasised. At the same time, one cannot help
but notice that many concepts prominent in the
constructivist or sociological liter ature –
perceptions, credibility and trust, expertise
and knowledge, the saliency of policy issues,
ideology and political preferences – feature
equally prominently in the story told. Thus, a
second-level reading of the book indicates that
the extent of leverage detained by domestic
elites has primarily depended on their ideologi-
cal proximity with the Troika.
Second, while conditionality is a key concept
in the book, it is not very much conceptualised
or theorised. Again, the rich volume offers
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