The political economy of the Greek sovereign debt crisis: how political divisions shaped an unsustainable economic model

Abstract

This thesis examines the causes and consequences of the Greek sovereign debt crisis of 2010. The key claim developed throughout the dissertation is that existing scholarship on the topic fails to account for the historical genesis, and evolution, of an exceptional state apparatus in Greece which not only mediated and administered problematic bailout programmes but was their very foundation. In other words, the key to explaining and perhaps avoiding another Greek tragedy is to delve ever deeper into the complicated and contested political economic historiography of the social formation that evolved in Greece, to ascertain precisely the extent to which economic structures, political processes and social institutions synergised and created the conditions for a spectacular instrumentalisation and, ultimately, socialisation of sovereign debt.