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5 - A Greek Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2019

George E. Shambaugh
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

Europe’s journey toward the ideal of ever-denser integration, peace and prosperity has been buffeted by repeated trials of temptation, frustration and risk. Like Odysseus, who bound himself to the mast of his ship to avoid the seductive songs of the Sirens, political leaders of Europe bound themselves by treaty and fealty to the principle of fiscal discipline in order to protect themselves from the alluring yet fickle flows of global capital. As they discovered, such constraints are neither always effective nor always desirable. Consequently, also like Odysseus, economic policymakers and national politicians continue to employ a wide range of strategies to steer Europe past the twin challenges posed by a modern-day Scylla (i.e., a multiheaded monster of sluggish economic growth, resurgent nationalism and social unrest that threatens to yank politicians out of office and cast countries out of the European Union [EU]) and Charybdis (i.e., a whirlpool of financial capital energized by expansive monetary policy and conditional bailouts that threatens to pull individual countries and perhaps the EU itself underwater).

Type
Chapter
Information
Oracles, Heroes or Villains
Economic Policymakers, National Politicians and the Power to Shape Markets
, pp. 152 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • A Greek Tragedy
  • George E. Shambaugh, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Oracles, Heroes or Villains
  • Online publication: 09 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108624978.006
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  • A Greek Tragedy
  • George E. Shambaugh, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Oracles, Heroes or Villains
  • Online publication: 09 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108624978.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A Greek Tragedy
  • George E. Shambaugh, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Oracles, Heroes or Villains
  • Online publication: 09 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108624978.006
Available formats
×