Authoritarian Neoliberalism in the European Semester. The Case of Austria.

The thesis investigates the post-crisis economic governance of the Eurozone from a critical perspective, studying the European Semester as the overarching framework and Austria in the years 2011 to ‘17 as a member state case study. The European Semester introduction addressed both an increased fiscal surveillance after the euro crisis and an increased macroeconomic coordination and guidance under Europe 2020. As such, it enhanced the supranational dimension of surveillance and coordination in the hands of executive and bureaucratic institutions, possibly impacting national democratic processes and socio-economic policymaking. To this end, the thesis utilises the theoretical framework of authoritarian neoliberalism to test whether the European Semester fostered a neoliberalisation in Austria and facilitated elements of authoritarianism in political decision-making networks. In order to conduct this analysis, the research tool of policy networks has been adopted to outline the importance of networks to the neo-corporatist system in Austria, and to guide the use of further methods, particularly elite interviews that have been conducted with the key actors shaping the Semester in Austria. The empirical findings show that the European Semester for Austria displayed a policy-focus biased towards fiscal discipline and market-building, but a considerable impact on Austrian policymaking is only observable in the early years under disciplining austerity politics. This confirms that the European Semester for the Eurozone moved away from rules-based fiscal discipline but maintained a neoliberal market-orientation. In the networks of decision-making, the Semester strengthened the government bureaucracy and weakened the Austrian parliament. As a neo-corporatist country, the Austrian case suggests that such systems experience some pressure to adjust, but social partners remain powerful actors in shaping policymaking in certain areas. Overall, the European Semester is undergoing incremental changes and guiding more openly and cooperatively, but it still suffers from weak implementation and structural limitations to its legitimacy.