Judging from the three books under review here, the battle for the meaning of the Celtic Tiger is... more Judging from the three books under review here, the battle for the meaning of the Celtic Tiger is well and truly under way. The most recent of the three, The Making of the Celtic Tiger by Ray Mac Sharry and Padraic White is, as one might expect from the Minister of Finance who introduced the austerity package in March 1987 from which the beginnings of Ireland's economic recovery is usually dated, and from the managing director of the IDA from 1981-90, a paean of praise to 'an economic transformation that none had predicted'. Paul Sweeney's The Celtic Tiger, in its second edition, acknowledges an apprehension that economic growth would falter or even crash as soon as the first edition was published in 1997 and seems more convinced than ever that the Irish economy entered a virtuous circle from 1987. He does, however, admit to 'unfinished business', most notably in tackling poverty and the housing crisis. Denis O'Hearn, alone among the three, casts a more critical eye on the Celtic Tiger phenomenon, and through a Peadar Kirby is a lecturer in the School of Communications in Dublin City University. He has recently been awarded a PhD by the London School of Economics for a study entitled 'Growth with Inequality: The International Political Economy of Ireland's Development.' This book review is from the first Feasta Review, a 204-page large format book. Copies are available for £15 from Green Books.
Following the seeming dramatic success of the years of the Celtic Tiger boom (1994-2007), the eve... more Following the seeming dramatic success of the years of the Celtic Tiger boom (1994-2007), the even more dramatic collapse of the Irish banking system since 2008 has, as stated by senior Labour politician Pat Rabbitte, a former party leader and currently Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, come to threaten the solvency and stability of the Irish state itself. Not only has this led to a significant breakthrough for the left in the February 2011 general election, but it has raised serious questions about the sustainability of the extreme free-market road to development followed by successive Irish governments. As a member of both the European Union (EU) and the euro zone, the Irish crisis furthermore threatens the cohesion of the Union and the longer term viability of the common currency. After decades when free-market capitalism seemed unassailable, Ireland is showing the economic and social cost of promoting the market as the motor and arbiter of what constitutes development. From being the poster child of success in the era of globalization, Ireland has now become a warning signal.
and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requi... more and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?
Este artículo ofrece un breve repaso de las principales estrategias de desarrollo usadas por el e... more Este artículo ofrece un breve repaso de las principales estrategias de desarrollo usadas por el estado irlandés, de las políticas sociales asociadas a ellas y de su impacto en la pobreza. Aunque el artículo descri be el contexto desde la independencia de Irlanda en 1922, su foco de atención se centra en el periodo posterior a los años ochenta, porque este es el periodo en el que se implantaron estas políticas y se asocia con el estallido de los años noventa, que hizo que Irlanda pasara a ser ampliamente conocida como el “Tigre Céltico”. El objeto del artículo es la República de Irlanda (conocida como el Estado Libre Irlandés desde 1922 a 1937 y como Eire desde 1937 a 1949). Comienza ofreciendo una panorámica de las principales estrategias de desarrollo llevadas a cabo por el estado desde 1922 a 1980, y sus resultados en los niveles de pobreza -tanto como podemos conocer dichos niveles-. El segundo apartado examina la crisis de los primeros años ochenta y las respuestas de desarrollo...
The end of Ireland's economic boom provides an opportunity critically to assess the nature of the... more The end of Ireland's economic boom provides an opportunity critically to assess the nature of the state-civil society relationship as it has evolved, and to offer perspectives on how it might change in the immediate future. This is the purpose of this chapter. It begins by summarising what the book has told us about the nature of the relationship between state and civil society in Ireland as we put the Celtic Tiger period behind us. The chapter then illustrates some examples of the consequences of the type of statecivil society relationship that became dominant in Ireland over the past two decades, identifying some worrying absences. The following section theorises the symbiotic relationship between state and civil society and how both have mutually constituted themselves with outcomes that are ever more evident throughout Irish society. The chapter finishes by mapping some alternatives about how the relationship could be transformed in a way that would be more beneficial for civil society and for Irish society more widely.
hosted a visit from the outgoing president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Am... more hosted a visit from the outgoing president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the American academic Erik Olin Wright. His visit to UL focused on examining transformation from the perspective of method, in Cork his visit was an opportunity to explore the concept of transformation while his Maynooth visit focused on alternatives for transformation when over 150 academics and civil society activists discussed Irish possibilities for real utopias in ten workshops that examined practical ideas for transformation in areas as diverse as gender equality, commons, knowledge, basic income, banking, cooperatives , degrowth and democracy. He also participated in a number of symposia, seminars, site visits, political meetings and conferences, and visited various civil society initiatives including the Fatima Regeneration Project, Cloughjordan ecovillage, the Basic Income Ireland network and Look Left magazine. This special edition of the IJS commemorates this series of events and is presented as a contribution to Irish public sociology. It aims to further public discourse about alternatives and explicitly seeks to be relevant to wider civil society and the possibilities for social transformation. Based on the work of Wright, transformation is here understood as the ways in which strategies of transformation have some prospect over the long term to erode capitalist power relations and build socialist alternatives. Wright history of anti-capitalist struggle. Ruptural transformations envision creating new emancipatory institutions through a sharp break with existing institutions and social structures. Interstitial transformations seek to build new forms of social empowerment in the niches, spaces and margins of capitalist society. These potentially erode the constraints on the spaces themselves but also serve
Theme: Ireland's banking crisis was described by the IMF in early 2009 as matching 'episodes of t... more Theme: Ireland's banking crisis was described by the IMF in early 2009 as matching 'episodes of the most severe economic distress in post-World War II history', yet measures taken since 2008 to overcome it have only served to worsen the crisis. Summary: Hailed for over a decade as the 'Celtic Tiger', Ireland's economy collapsed in 2008 as falling property prices exposed huge liabilities in its banking system resulting from reckless lending to builders and developers. This paper describes the trajectory of Ireland's worsening banking crisis from 2008 up to the acceptance of an EU/ECB/IMF rescue package in November 2010 and a four-year austerity plan to reduce the budget deficit from 32% of GDP. The paper links the crisis to features of the development model that brought high economic growth from 1994 to 2007 and ends by examining the prospects for overcoming the current crisis. Analysis: As Ireland faced its most severe budget ever in December 2010, the fourth austerity budget in a row, and having been forced into negotiations with the EU Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a package of financial assistance, the scale and depth of the Irish financial crisis was causing worries for the future of the euro itself. With international markets demanding record interest rates touching 9% for Irish government bonds and with a deficit that was to reach 32% of GDP if the estimated cost of rescuing the Irish banks was included, political leaders and the media were united in seeing the budget as a vital element in regaining international credibility that Ireland could surmount its enormous problems. Details of a four-year austerity strategy published in late November detailing cuts in expenditure and tax rises designed to bring the deficit down to 3% of GNP by 2014 as demanded by the European Commission failed to calm market turmoil and even the normally cautious Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Ireland's principal independent economic think-tank, voiced its doubts that this target was achievable. 1 The reference is to a quote from a senior Labour Party deputy (member of the Irish Parliament) and former party leader, Pat Rabbitte, who in a debate in the chamber on Wednesday, 17 November 2010, said the following: 'Whatever emerges from the discussions with the IMF, the talks had better ensure that this is the last bailout, unless the Government is going to permit the banks to cannibalise the State' (full text available at http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2010-11-17.471.0&s=speaker%3A282#g500.0, accessed 8/XII/2010).
The Celtic Tiger boom, and now its collapse, has been largely analysed through the lens of neo-cl... more The Celtic Tiger boom, and now its collapse, has been largely analysed through the lens of neo-classical economics and modernisation theory with much attention being paid to economic issues such as the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the need for cost competitiveness, or social issues such as the liberalisation of values and practices, upward social mobility, increased living standards and debates about social polarisation. While these lens offer many valuable and valid insights, they tend to neglect the particular and distinctive structural characteristics of the way the Irish economy and Irish society have developed, and the reasons for these. This paper takes a more structuralist approach, identifying the ‘Irish model’ that emerged during the boom years, a particular form of structured power. The paper places this ‘model’ in the wider context of the emergence of financialisation as a driver of a particular kind of global economy. Focusing attention on the role of the ...
ABSTRACT The article examines the claims of the small states literature on the importance of alli... more ABSTRACT The article examines the claims of the small states literature on the importance of alliance formation. It applies it to the case of Ireland and Iceland and asks whether membership of the EU and euro in Ireland and the absence of these in Iceland had a say in their reduction of risk before the financial crisis, assistance in absorbing the shock of their crash and help in recovering after it. The article argues that the notion of shelter needs to take more account of domestic arrangements and the shelter's costs though the cases confirm the importance of alliance formation.
This special issue on the Geographies of the Celtic Tiger is more timely than we imagined it woul... more This special issue on the Geographies of the Celtic Tiger is more timely than we imagined it would be when first being planned. Its publication coincides with the Republic of Ireland entering its worst recession for at least a quarter of a century; a recession that owes as much to domestic policy failures as it does to the wider international context of bad debt and constrained credit. This special issue then is being published at a time that calls for a searching re-examination of the policies and underlying paradigm that for two decades were seen to facilitate an historically unique period of economic and social development in the Republic of Ireland. We are confident that the papers that passed critical review for inclusion in this special issue each have an original contribution to make, based on primary research, to reconsidering key areas of public policy and of the broader paradigm that informed the successes of recent decades. Our call for papers highlighted the impacts of the Celtic Tiger on Ireland's economic and social geography. This we understood both in terms of its internal geography and its changing location in the global economic and social divisions of labour. Internally, we identified the spatiality of economic transformation such as newly embedded clusters of enterprises and their integration into global value chains, the geography and role of migrant workers and the changing nature and geography of social inclusion and exclusion. In relation to Ireland's wider international positioning, we invited studies of Ireland's catch-up experience in comparison to other examples of 'late development' and how Ireland's economy has been repositioned in relation to the core regions of Europe, Asia and North America in particular. The final topic we flagged overlapped the national/international divide in our reference to the political economy of uneven development: governance structures, regional policies and strategies from the local to the level of the European Union. In these ways, we sought to open the issue to wider interdisciplinary crossovers Á hoping for contributions from scholars in development studies, international political economy and even possibly comparative politics that could throw light on the changing multiple positionings of different social groups and economic sectors within Ireland and of the country itself within regional and global networks, as well as the modes of governance that underpin such repositionings. In the event, our hope of attracting scholars from more political fields was disappointed, perhaps illustrating the continuing dominance of disciplinary identities in the Irish social sciences.
... Inequality, Poverty and Justice: Empirical and Policy Issues RAIMO VAYRYNEN (Finnish Academy ... more ... Inequality, Poverty and Justice: Empirical and Policy Issues RAIMO VAYRYNEN (Finnish Academy of Science) 9 Development Financing through ODA: Trends, Financing Gaps, and ChallengesTONY ADDISON, GEORGE MAVROTAS and MARK MCGILLIVRAY (WIDER) 28 ...
Judging from the three books under review here, the battle for the meaning of the Celtic Tiger is... more Judging from the three books under review here, the battle for the meaning of the Celtic Tiger is well and truly under way. The most recent of the three, The Making of the Celtic Tiger by Ray Mac Sharry and Padraic White is, as one might expect from the Minister of Finance who introduced the austerity package in March 1987 from which the beginnings of Ireland's economic recovery is usually dated, and from the managing director of the IDA from 1981-90, a paean of praise to 'an economic transformation that none had predicted'. Paul Sweeney's The Celtic Tiger, in its second edition, acknowledges an apprehension that economic growth would falter or even crash as soon as the first edition was published in 1997 and seems more convinced than ever that the Irish economy entered a virtuous circle from 1987. He does, however, admit to 'unfinished business', most notably in tackling poverty and the housing crisis. Denis O'Hearn, alone among the three, casts a more critical eye on the Celtic Tiger phenomenon, and through a Peadar Kirby is a lecturer in the School of Communications in Dublin City University. He has recently been awarded a PhD by the London School of Economics for a study entitled 'Growth with Inequality: The International Political Economy of Ireland's Development.' This book review is from the first Feasta Review, a 204-page large format book. Copies are available for £15 from Green Books.
Following the seeming dramatic success of the years of the Celtic Tiger boom (1994-2007), the eve... more Following the seeming dramatic success of the years of the Celtic Tiger boom (1994-2007), the even more dramatic collapse of the Irish banking system since 2008 has, as stated by senior Labour politician Pat Rabbitte, a former party leader and currently Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, come to threaten the solvency and stability of the Irish state itself. Not only has this led to a significant breakthrough for the left in the February 2011 general election, but it has raised serious questions about the sustainability of the extreme free-market road to development followed by successive Irish governments. As a member of both the European Union (EU) and the euro zone, the Irish crisis furthermore threatens the cohesion of the Union and the longer term viability of the common currency. After decades when free-market capitalism seemed unassailable, Ireland is showing the economic and social cost of promoting the market as the motor and arbiter of what constitutes development. From being the poster child of success in the era of globalization, Ireland has now become a warning signal.
and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requi... more and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?
Este artículo ofrece un breve repaso de las principales estrategias de desarrollo usadas por el e... more Este artículo ofrece un breve repaso de las principales estrategias de desarrollo usadas por el estado irlandés, de las políticas sociales asociadas a ellas y de su impacto en la pobreza. Aunque el artículo descri be el contexto desde la independencia de Irlanda en 1922, su foco de atención se centra en el periodo posterior a los años ochenta, porque este es el periodo en el que se implantaron estas políticas y se asocia con el estallido de los años noventa, que hizo que Irlanda pasara a ser ampliamente conocida como el “Tigre Céltico”. El objeto del artículo es la República de Irlanda (conocida como el Estado Libre Irlandés desde 1922 a 1937 y como Eire desde 1937 a 1949). Comienza ofreciendo una panorámica de las principales estrategias de desarrollo llevadas a cabo por el estado desde 1922 a 1980, y sus resultados en los niveles de pobreza -tanto como podemos conocer dichos niveles-. El segundo apartado examina la crisis de los primeros años ochenta y las respuestas de desarrollo...
The end of Ireland's economic boom provides an opportunity critically to assess the nature of the... more The end of Ireland's economic boom provides an opportunity critically to assess the nature of the state-civil society relationship as it has evolved, and to offer perspectives on how it might change in the immediate future. This is the purpose of this chapter. It begins by summarising what the book has told us about the nature of the relationship between state and civil society in Ireland as we put the Celtic Tiger period behind us. The chapter then illustrates some examples of the consequences of the type of statecivil society relationship that became dominant in Ireland over the past two decades, identifying some worrying absences. The following section theorises the symbiotic relationship between state and civil society and how both have mutually constituted themselves with outcomes that are ever more evident throughout Irish society. The chapter finishes by mapping some alternatives about how the relationship could be transformed in a way that would be more beneficial for civil society and for Irish society more widely.
hosted a visit from the outgoing president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Am... more hosted a visit from the outgoing president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the American academic Erik Olin Wright. His visit to UL focused on examining transformation from the perspective of method, in Cork his visit was an opportunity to explore the concept of transformation while his Maynooth visit focused on alternatives for transformation when over 150 academics and civil society activists discussed Irish possibilities for real utopias in ten workshops that examined practical ideas for transformation in areas as diverse as gender equality, commons, knowledge, basic income, banking, cooperatives , degrowth and democracy. He also participated in a number of symposia, seminars, site visits, political meetings and conferences, and visited various civil society initiatives including the Fatima Regeneration Project, Cloughjordan ecovillage, the Basic Income Ireland network and Look Left magazine. This special edition of the IJS commemorates this series of events and is presented as a contribution to Irish public sociology. It aims to further public discourse about alternatives and explicitly seeks to be relevant to wider civil society and the possibilities for social transformation. Based on the work of Wright, transformation is here understood as the ways in which strategies of transformation have some prospect over the long term to erode capitalist power relations and build socialist alternatives. Wright history of anti-capitalist struggle. Ruptural transformations envision creating new emancipatory institutions through a sharp break with existing institutions and social structures. Interstitial transformations seek to build new forms of social empowerment in the niches, spaces and margins of capitalist society. These potentially erode the constraints on the spaces themselves but also serve
Theme: Ireland's banking crisis was described by the IMF in early 2009 as matching 'episodes of t... more Theme: Ireland's banking crisis was described by the IMF in early 2009 as matching 'episodes of the most severe economic distress in post-World War II history', yet measures taken since 2008 to overcome it have only served to worsen the crisis. Summary: Hailed for over a decade as the 'Celtic Tiger', Ireland's economy collapsed in 2008 as falling property prices exposed huge liabilities in its banking system resulting from reckless lending to builders and developers. This paper describes the trajectory of Ireland's worsening banking crisis from 2008 up to the acceptance of an EU/ECB/IMF rescue package in November 2010 and a four-year austerity plan to reduce the budget deficit from 32% of GDP. The paper links the crisis to features of the development model that brought high economic growth from 1994 to 2007 and ends by examining the prospects for overcoming the current crisis. Analysis: As Ireland faced its most severe budget ever in December 2010, the fourth austerity budget in a row, and having been forced into negotiations with the EU Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a package of financial assistance, the scale and depth of the Irish financial crisis was causing worries for the future of the euro itself. With international markets demanding record interest rates touching 9% for Irish government bonds and with a deficit that was to reach 32% of GDP if the estimated cost of rescuing the Irish banks was included, political leaders and the media were united in seeing the budget as a vital element in regaining international credibility that Ireland could surmount its enormous problems. Details of a four-year austerity strategy published in late November detailing cuts in expenditure and tax rises designed to bring the deficit down to 3% of GNP by 2014 as demanded by the European Commission failed to calm market turmoil and even the normally cautious Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Ireland's principal independent economic think-tank, voiced its doubts that this target was achievable. 1 The reference is to a quote from a senior Labour Party deputy (member of the Irish Parliament) and former party leader, Pat Rabbitte, who in a debate in the chamber on Wednesday, 17 November 2010, said the following: 'Whatever emerges from the discussions with the IMF, the talks had better ensure that this is the last bailout, unless the Government is going to permit the banks to cannibalise the State' (full text available at http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2010-11-17.471.0&s=speaker%3A282#g500.0, accessed 8/XII/2010).
The Celtic Tiger boom, and now its collapse, has been largely analysed through the lens of neo-cl... more The Celtic Tiger boom, and now its collapse, has been largely analysed through the lens of neo-classical economics and modernisation theory with much attention being paid to economic issues such as the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the need for cost competitiveness, or social issues such as the liberalisation of values and practices, upward social mobility, increased living standards and debates about social polarisation. While these lens offer many valuable and valid insights, they tend to neglect the particular and distinctive structural characteristics of the way the Irish economy and Irish society have developed, and the reasons for these. This paper takes a more structuralist approach, identifying the ‘Irish model’ that emerged during the boom years, a particular form of structured power. The paper places this ‘model’ in the wider context of the emergence of financialisation as a driver of a particular kind of global economy. Focusing attention on the role of the ...
ABSTRACT The article examines the claims of the small states literature on the importance of alli... more ABSTRACT The article examines the claims of the small states literature on the importance of alliance formation. It applies it to the case of Ireland and Iceland and asks whether membership of the EU and euro in Ireland and the absence of these in Iceland had a say in their reduction of risk before the financial crisis, assistance in absorbing the shock of their crash and help in recovering after it. The article argues that the notion of shelter needs to take more account of domestic arrangements and the shelter's costs though the cases confirm the importance of alliance formation.
This special issue on the Geographies of the Celtic Tiger is more timely than we imagined it woul... more This special issue on the Geographies of the Celtic Tiger is more timely than we imagined it would be when first being planned. Its publication coincides with the Republic of Ireland entering its worst recession for at least a quarter of a century; a recession that owes as much to domestic policy failures as it does to the wider international context of bad debt and constrained credit. This special issue then is being published at a time that calls for a searching re-examination of the policies and underlying paradigm that for two decades were seen to facilitate an historically unique period of economic and social development in the Republic of Ireland. We are confident that the papers that passed critical review for inclusion in this special issue each have an original contribution to make, based on primary research, to reconsidering key areas of public policy and of the broader paradigm that informed the successes of recent decades. Our call for papers highlighted the impacts of the Celtic Tiger on Ireland's economic and social geography. This we understood both in terms of its internal geography and its changing location in the global economic and social divisions of labour. Internally, we identified the spatiality of economic transformation such as newly embedded clusters of enterprises and their integration into global value chains, the geography and role of migrant workers and the changing nature and geography of social inclusion and exclusion. In relation to Ireland's wider international positioning, we invited studies of Ireland's catch-up experience in comparison to other examples of 'late development' and how Ireland's economy has been repositioned in relation to the core regions of Europe, Asia and North America in particular. The final topic we flagged overlapped the national/international divide in our reference to the political economy of uneven development: governance structures, regional policies and strategies from the local to the level of the European Union. In these ways, we sought to open the issue to wider interdisciplinary crossovers Á hoping for contributions from scholars in development studies, international political economy and even possibly comparative politics that could throw light on the changing multiple positionings of different social groups and economic sectors within Ireland and of the country itself within regional and global networks, as well as the modes of governance that underpin such repositionings. In the event, our hope of attracting scholars from more political fields was disappointed, perhaps illustrating the continuing dominance of disciplinary identities in the Irish social sciences.
... Inequality, Poverty and Justice: Empirical and Policy Issues RAIMO VAYRYNEN (Finnish Academy ... more ... Inequality, Poverty and Justice: Empirical and Policy Issues RAIMO VAYRYNEN (Finnish Academy of Science) 9 Development Financing through ODA: Trends, Financing Gaps, and ChallengesTONY ADDISON, GEORGE MAVROTAS and MARK MCGILLIVRAY (WIDER) 28 ...
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