Implementing reforms during the economic crisis (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 2,0, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: Despite of the fact that the market economy has demonstrated its superiority before the others types of economies it is still not protected from crises. Economic crises are usually connected with the end of business cycles but they can also take place by the negative state of economy or mistakes of governments. In any case crises have negative influence on the electoral support of governments because voters have to accept such negative economic phenomena as unemployment, inflation, bankruptcy of banks and companies. Voters are inclined to blame governments and political actors with such problems.
The most popular form of response of governments to economic crises is the implication of appropriate economic reforms. Some reforms can have negative consequences for voters and therefore for the electoral support and restrict some essential options of the welfare state. Nevertheless the examples from the current crisis of the Euro zone as well as the examples from previous crises show that certain states implement reforms and therefore overcome crisis more successful than others. In this way, the problem of this term paper is the following one: why are some countries in the Euro zone are more successful in implementing reforms than others?
In order to answer this question first of all the theoretical frames are represented. They include two theories which explain the decision of governments to undertake economic reforms as well as the behavior during the reforms' implementation. The empirical examples of Italy which went through the severe economic crisis before the joining the Euro zone in the 1990s and Ireland which suffered from the financial crisis of 2008 - 2009 as a member state of the Euro zone and then overcame it will show how and why some countries can be successful in implementation of risky reforms in practice.