Framing the global economic downturn Crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions Framing the global economic downturn Crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions Edited by Paul ’t Hart and Karen Tindall Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: anuepress@anu.edu.au This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/global_economy_citation. html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Framing the global economic downturn : crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions / editor, Paul ‘t Hart, Karen Tindall. ISBN: 9781921666049 (pbk.) 9781921666056 (pdf) Series: Australia New Zealand School of Government monograph Subjects: Financial crises. Globalization Economic aspects. Bankruptcy International cooperation. Crisis management Political aspects. Political leadership. Decision-making in public administration. Other Authors/Contributors: Hart, Paul ‘t Tindall, Karen. Dewey Number: 352.3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by John Butcher Cover images sourced from AAP Printed by University Printing Services, ANU Funding for this monograph series has been provided by the Australia and New Zealand School of Government Research Program. This edition © 2009 ANU E Press John Wanna, Series Editor Professor John Wanna is the Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University and is the director of research for the Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). He is also a joint appointment with the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Grith University and a principal researcher with two research centres: the Governance and Public Policy Research Centre and the nationally-funded Key Centre in Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Grith University. Table of Contents The contributors ix Part I. Setting the stage 1. From ‘market correction’ to ‘global catastrophe’: framing the 3 economic downturn Paul ’t Hart and Karen Tindall 2. Understanding crisis exploitation: leadership, rhetoric 21 and framing contests in response to the economic meltdown Paul ’t Hart and Karen Tindall Part II. One crisis, dierent worlds: the United States and Canada 3. The United States: crisis leadership in times of transition 43 Isaac Ijjo Donato 4. Canada: the politics of optimism 69 Anastasia Glushko Part III. Dark clouds and turbulence in Europe 5. United Kingdom: the politics of government survival 99 Justin Pritchard 6. Republic of Ireland: from Celtic tiger to recession victim 127 Adam Masters 7. France: dominant leadership 157 Natalie Windle 8. The European Union: from impotence to opportunity? 181 Tully Fletcher Part IV. No hiding place: the meltdown and the Asia-Pacic Region 9. Australia: ‘the lucky country’ on a knife edge 203 Matthew Laing and Karen Tindall 10. New Zealand: electoral politics in times of crisis 243 Michael Jones 11. Singapore: staying the course 267 Faith Benjaathonsirikul vii viii Part V. Comparisons and reections 12. Contesting the frame: opposition leadership and the global 287 nancial crisis Brendan McCarie 13. Crisis leadership in terra incognita: why meaning making is 309 not enough Arjen Boin 14. Framing dilemmas in the quest for successful crisis management 315 Allan McConnell 15. Managing trans-boundary crises: leadership challenges for the 323 EU Presidency Bengt Sundelius 16. Public leadership and the social construction of economic 331 catastrophe Paul ’t Hart and Karen Tindall The contributors Editors Paul ’t Hart is Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University, Professor of Public Administration at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and adjunct professor at the Australia New Zealand School of Government. Karen Tindall is completing a PhD on government responses to large-scale consular emergencies at the Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University. Case study authors (Parts II–IV) Isaac Ijjo Donato, Anastasia Glushko, Justin Pritchard, Adam Masters, Natalie Windle, Tully Fletcher, Michael Jones and Faith Benjaathonsirikul study political science (Hons) at The Australian National University. Matthew Laing is completing a PhD in political science at the Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University. Theme chapter authors (Part V) Arjen Boin is an associate professor at the Public Administration Institute, Louisiana State University. Brendan McCaffrie is completing a PhD in political science in the College of Arts and Social Science, The Australian National University. Allan McConnell is a professor in the Department of Politics, Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Bengt Sundelius is Professor of Government at Uppsala University and at the Swedish National Defence College. ix [...]... rhetoric of crisis exploitation is twofold: the nature and depth of changes in political support for key public office-holders and/ or agencies; and the nature and degree of policy change in the wake of an emergency/disturbance 3 Its triggering condition is the occurrence of non-routine, disruptive incidents or trends: the cascade of 23 Framing the global economic downturn ‘bad news’ about the state of US... public office-holders and existing public policies and their alternatives By studying and interpreting leaders’ crisis rhetoric through this lens, we seek to open the ‘black box’ of politico-strategic crisis management (rather than its operational management, which is the focus of the bulk of existing research on emergencies and crises) In formal terms, the ultimate explanandum of the study of the rhetoric. .. contains case studies of the crisis rhetoric of the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Ireland and the European Commission and the European Central Bank The crisis hit hard and fast in the United Kingdom and Ireland In both countries, long-serving governments struggled to switch from an initial facade of optimism to acknowledging the depth of the problems, yet sidestepped questions about their own responsibilities... vulnerabilities and threats along the lines of the scenario that actually transpired These were evidently not acted on effectively, and much of the political controversy in the aftermath of the once ‘incomprehensible’ crisis focuses on the question of why no action was taken So type-3 ways of perceiving and framing the events have gained potential currency 25 Framing the global economic downturn The first framing. .. similarities and differences that can be observed in the ways in which leaders within and across the different jurisdictions go about the work of framing the global meltdown We identify a number of contextual factors that we suggest shape their perceptions of the crisis and make them prefer some framing tactics to others We also show that much of the rhetoric of the leaders followed a pattern of ‘staged... involved in the crisis engage in critical, non-defensive modes of self-scrutiny and draw evidence-based and reflective lessons for their future performance rather politics- driven and knee-jerk ones The challenge of remembering: acknowledging that many crises are traumatic experiences for victims, responders and the organisations and communities involved and accommodating their desires that they and others... destroyed the employment and compromised the wellbeing of tens of millions of people At the time of writing, it continues to pose major challenges to public policymakers and economic actors around the world Although it had been bubbling away for more than a year in the form of a US-based ‘credit crunch’, the crisis deepened and widened to a truly global and whole -of- economy phenomenon during a number of critical... range of polities responded to the cascading problems in financial institutions and their growing impact on the ‘real’ economy In particular, our focus is on how these public leaders described and explained the downturn to the public and sought to persuade it of the courses of action they proposed to tackle the crisis Ours is, therefore, a study of crisis rhetoric, embedded in a broader perspective of the. .. Lomborg 2004; Posner 2004).1 The sense of threat and uncertainty they induce can profoundly impact people’s understanding of the world around them The occurrence of a large-scale emergency or the widespread use of the emotive labels such as crisis , ‘scandal’ or ‘fiasco’ to denote a particular state of affairs or trend in the public domain implies a ‘dislocation’ of hitherto dominant social, political... other forms of social crisis are all in the eye of the beholder Following the classic Thomas theorem (‘if men define their situations as real, they are real in their consequences’), it is not the events on the ground, but their public perception and interpretation that determine their potential impact on political office-holders and public policy As many have remarked in the context of the emerging . Framing the global economic downturn Crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions Framing the global economic downturn Crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions Edited by Paul ’t Hart. http://epress.anu.edu.au /global_ economy_citation. html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Framing the global economic downturn : crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions. critical, non-defensive modes of self-scrutiny and draw evidence-based and reflective lessons for their future performance rather politics- driven and knee-jerk ones. 9. The challenge of remembering: