Orchestrating Austerity

Impacts and Resistance

edited by Donna Baines and Stephen McBride

Following the 2007–08 global financial crisis, Western nations engaged a variety of measures that departed quite dramatically from conventional neoliberal wisdom. However, these policies were quickly succeeded by what we now call “austerity” measures. This collection engages with the question: Is there something new in this era of austerity, or should this be understood as a continuation and intensification of earlier forms of neoliberalism? Finally, Jim Stanford’s afterword probes to the heart of the question of why austerity in the first place.

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About the book

Canadian Studies Capitalism & Alternatives

Authors

Donna Baines

Donna Baines is the director and a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia. She is editor of Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice, co-editor (with Stephen McBride) of Orchestrating Austerity and co-author of Case Critical. Her research and teaching interests include anti-oppressive theory and practice, paid and unpaid care work and social justice change.

Stephen McBride

Stephen McBride is a professor (Canada Research Chair in public policy and globalization, 2010-2024) in the Department of Political Science, McMaster University, where he is an associate member of the School of Labour Studies and a member of the Institute for Globalization and the Human Condition. His research interests include the crises of liberal democracy, globalization, the political economy of austerity, and the past, present and future of the state and the public domain.

Introduction (Donna Baines & Stephen McBride)
PART 1: A CONTEXT OF AUSTERITY
“In Austerity We Trust” (Stephen McBride)
Structural Adjustment for the North (Robert O’Brien & Falin Zhang)
The Strategic Use of Budget Crisis (Ellen Russell)
Neoliberalism, Inequality and Austerity in Rich World Democracies (John Peters)
PART 2: CONTRADICTIONS
Austerity, Gender Equality and Canadian Unions (Linda Briskin with Sue Genge, Margaret McPhail & Marion Pollack)
Social Democracy in the New Age of Austerity (Bryan Evans)
Neoliberalism and Austerity as Class Struggle (Eric Pineault)
PART 3: INSECURITIES
Bridging the Gap (Wayne Lewchuk, Sam Vrankulj & Michelynn Laflèche)
Austerity Now, Poverty Later (Rachel Zhou)
Austerity, Job Training and Aboriginal People (Shauna MacKinnon)
Minority Nationalism in a Time of Austerity (Peter Graefe & Brent Toye)
PART 4: PUBLIC SECTOR: TARGETS AND RESISTANCE
P3s and the Value for Money Illusion (Heather Whiteside)
Ideology in the Classroom (Andy Hanson)
Care Work in the Non-Profits (Donna Baines)
Why Austerity? (Jim Stanford)
Bibliography