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This book analyses the discourses of economic liberalization reform in six Western European countries - Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. It provides systematic empirical evidence that policy-related discourses are much more than noise; rather, they are detailed expressions of institutional complementarities and political struggles. The author posits that the more open a discourse, the broader the range of perceived interests, which, in turn, increases the intensity of conflicts. Similarly, the more public discourse centres on coordination, the more intense actors need to engage with opposite interests, which most probably intensifies political disputes as well. Moreover, Wueest argues that the formation of a consensus within the political mainstream has left a vacuum for outsider parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain to feed on the contentiousness of economic liberalization policies.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Mapping economic liberalization discourse in Western Europe.- Chapter 2. Institutional and structural foundations of discourse.- Chapter 3. Designing the discourse analysis.- Chapter 4. Unity on the substance of discourse.- Chapter 5. Diversity in the structure of discourse.- Chapter 6. Conclusion: United in diversity.
About the author
Bruno Wueest is Research and Teaching Fellow at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests are distinctly interdisciplinary and include political communication, comparative political economy and computational linguistics. He works on the automated analysis of tweets, open survey questions, parliamentary debates and newspaper articles.
Summary
This book analyses the discourses of economic liberalization reform in six Western European countries – Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. It provides systematic empirical evidence that policy-related discourses are much more than noise; rather, they are detailed expressions of institutional complementarities and political struggles. The author posits that the more open a discourse, the broader the range of perceived interests, which, in turn, increases the intensity of conflicts. Similarly, the more public discourse centres on coordination, the more intense actors need to engage with opposite interests, which most probably intensifies political disputes as well. Moreover, Wueest argues that the formation of a consensus within the political mainstream has left a vacuum for outsider parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain to feed on the contentiousness of economic liberalization policies.
Additional text
“Bruno Wueest’s Politics of Economic Liberalization is a timely contribution to the literature on comparative political economy and policy discourse. … Wueest sheds new and welcome light on old debates concerning policy convergence and divergence, institutional complementarities and comparative advantage, political polarization, access and representation.” (Matt Wilder, Swiss Political Science Review, Vol. 25 (2), 2019)
Report
"Bruno Wueest's Politics of Economic Liberalization is a timely contribution to the literature on comparative political economy and policy discourse. ... Wueest sheds new and welcome light on old debates concerning policy convergence and divergence, institutional complementarities and comparative advantage, political polarization, access and representation." (Matt Wilder, Swiss Political Science Review, Vol. 25 (2), 2019)
