The course analyses the various phases through which the European economy has passed since the end of the Second World War until today.
In particular, it examines the post-war economic ‘miracle’ of the first post-war decades and the policy matrix that favoured the unprecedented rates of economic growth and capital accumulation. A process which was interrupted during the crisis of the 1970s and which led to the transition of the European economic and political system from the so-called ‘social democratic consensus’ to the ‘neoliberal consensus’.
Finally, the same course analyses the political and economic processes that entailed the different stages of economic integration of the capitalist economies of Europe, culminating in the Eurozone crisis of the early 2010s.
The topics to be covered include the following:
- Productive restructuring of the European economy after the end of World War II.
- The creation of the European welfare state and its neoliberal deregulation.
- The process of unification of capitalist economies.
- The transition of the former socialist economies to market economies and the processes in the European economy.
- From the ‘Greek patient’ to the PILGS: the Eurozone crisis and attempts to resolve it.