Towards a Political Theory of Crisis: Policy and Resistance across Europe

This article analyses the Great Recession in terms of a movement from a discourse of financial crisis to a crisis of sovereign debt to the current phase of the politics of austerity and cuts. It suggests that the unifying factor in the response of policy-makers to the crisis is the attempt to recompose class relations and tighten market-based constraints over labour power and money. The strategy represents a clear illustration of the “political use of crisis” to reaffirm the stark reality of the “cash nexus.” Selective state intervention to contain and prevent the “contagion” of the crisis has increasingly politicized the management of the economy and fueled debate about the nature of money, the character of the state, and the morality of capitalist social relations. This debate is being conducted by a growing number of resistance movements in Europe and threatens to turn an economic crisis into a political crisis of the state.