| dc.description.abstract | Policies of deficit and inflation rate reduction, commonly known as
austerity policies, have been dominating the European economic debate
for several years. The European Union’s constraints play an important
role in determining the content of the economic policies implemented by
member countries. Since 1979, Italy has made use of the EU institutions
as a vincolo esterno (external constraint) in order to facilitate the
liberalization of its economy: a goal that Italy, alone, had not the ability
to pursue for many reasons.
The aim of the research is to investigate the relationship between
the austerity policies and the European constraints. This relationship
has been observed through the views expressed by a number of
individuals (politicians, journalists, academics, interest groups and
others) and reported by the Italian press. The aim is to check whether
the support for austerity policies is motivated by the necessity to fulfill
the demands of the European institutions.
The considered events are the financial crises of 1992 and 2011.
The methodology is based on a content analysis of three newspaper
articles: “Corriere della Sera”, “la Repubblica”, “l’Unità”.
The hypothesis has a match in the empirical analysis: those who
express favorable opinions to the European constraints are more
oriented than those who do not show such views to support the austerity
policies. Another element that determines austerity support positions is
the interpretation of the economic situation in terms of emergency, but
in this case the relationship is usually less intense. Data also show that
there is a widespread consensus about austerity among the parties, the
newspapers and the professional categories, but a strong split/gap
resists regarding more specific aspects such as single economic
measures and the distribution of rebalancing costs within society. [edited by Author] | it_IT |
