Tangling with the Troika: ‘domestic ownership’ as political and administrative engagement in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rpxm20 Public Management Review ISSN: 1471-9037 (Print) 1471-9045 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpxm20 Tangling with the Troika: ‘domestic ownership’ as political and administrative engagement in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal Niamh Hardiman, Calliope Spanou, Joaquim Filipe Araújo & Muiris MacCarthaigh To cite this article: Niamh Hardiman, Calliope Spanou, Joaquim Filipe Araújo & Muiris MacCarthaigh (2019) Tangling with the Troika: ‘domestic ownership’ as political and administrative engagement in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, Public Management Review, 21:9, 1265-1286, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2019.1618385 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1618385 Published online: 24 May 2019. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 723 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 5 View citing articles Tangling with the Troika: ‘domestic ownership’as political and administrative engagement in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal Niamh Hardiman a , Calliope Spanou b , Joaquim Filipe Araújo c and Muiris MacCarthaigh d a UCD School of Politics and International Relations, and UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; b Department of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; c Department of International Relations and Public Administration, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal; d School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, and the George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK ABSTRACT This paper analyses variation in the degrees of difficulty involved in negotiating and implementing loan programmes with the international lenders in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. All three countries displayed high degrees of ultimate compliance with fiscal consolidation and structural adjustment conditionality, but the pace of implementation varied significantly. This paper argues that ‘domestic ownership’of the loan programmes is a key determinant of outcomes, understood in terms of two dimensions: negotiating capacity and implementation capacity. Empirical evidence confirms that these concepts provide a strong explanatory framework for understanding variation in relations between national governments and the international lenders. KEYWORDS Loan conditionality; Troika; fiscal consolidation; European periphery; public administration Introduction: pathways toward loan programme compliance In 2010 and 2011, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal became the first countries to engage with the Troika of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in implementing Eurozone loan programmes that required both fiscal retrenchment and structural reform. This paper examines the different modalities of engaging with the Troika in these three crisis-hit countries under the terms of similar loan programmes, in which each displayed different pathways to converge on similar ultimate performance outcomes. It argues that while all three eventually exited their programmes with high levels of compliance, variation in the way they dealt with the Troika is grounded in systematic patterns in their respective political and administrative systems. The Troika recognized that programme compliance was not merely a matter of top-down channelling of conditionality into compliance: ‘Irrespective of the CONTACT Niamh Hardiman [email protected] PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 2019, VOL. 21, NO. 9, 1265–1286 https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1618385 © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group programme country concerned, creditor countries face their own constraints, which impacts on the programme envelope’(European Parliament 2013,5–6). But how best to conceptualize these constraints? A crucial explanatory variable that is often invoked to account for variation in the outcome of loan conditionality is that of ‘domestic ownership’: if governments willingly adopt the terms of programme conditionality, the targets are more certain to be met (Boughton and Mourmouras 2002). But this concept begs many questions about how it is to be identified and why it might vary (Spanou 2016). Some even assert that the term is ‘so used and abused that it is now at best unhelpful and at worst misleading and obfuscating’(Buiter 2007, 651). Then again, the Troika reported that the loan programmes were subject to modification in the light of domestic representations, and sufficiently flexible to adjust to unexpected trends in economic performance (European Parliament 2013, 12). How this was managed and with what implications is relatively little understood. In this paper we propose that the concept of domestic ownership continues to be of value, but needs to be understood as having two dimensions: the possibility of building cross-party ideational alliances around a reform agenda, and the institutional capacity of the administrative system to deal with the challenges of technical information flow and of reform implementation required by the international lenders. These are the conditions that underpinned the changing terms on which governments engaged with the Troika, and the manner in which this engagement shaped negotiations about programme implementation. Managing conditionality: a review of the literature Variation in domestic practices when negotiating with the Troika may be seen at two stages in the process, that is, agenda-setting and policy implementation (Spanou 2016; Boughton and Mourmouras 2002). The former is more tightly controlled by the executive, while the latter is likely to involve a wider range of actors (Hupe and Hill 2016). Agenda-setting was ongoing throughout all the loan programmes. Specifically, what we mean by ‘agenda-setting’here is the continuous process of ‘negotiation as mode of coordination’, involving ‘mutual adjustment and accommodation of interests’rather than unilateral decision (Hill and Varone 2017, 302). While the framework of conditionality was set by the lenders, details of policy composition and the timing of their roll-out were subject to regular discussion, and negotiation made it possible to modify the terms of the loan programme. Disagreement about programme details typically flared during periods of poor economic performance that generated an increase in social discontent, which in turn fuelled party contestation and put electoral pressure on governing parties. The resultant loss of momentum by government in the face of the waning popular legitimacy and acceptability of their measures is often termed ‘reform fatigue’. A later review of the experiences by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) noted that ‘engagement with national authorities improved over time’, but also that relations tended to worsen as programmes approached an end. National authorities thought the Troika had grown ‘more intrusive’as time went on; while according to the Troika, governments relaxed their vigilance in response to the political costs of austerity (European Stability Mechanism 2017a, 72). The details of how negotiations were conducted varied. Such divergent perspectives are highly suggestive of the scope for conflicting perspectives and preferences between the two sides. But how and why do these vary? 1266 N. HARDIMAN ET AL. Agenda-setting was ongoing and involved government ministers and top public administration officials on the one hand, and the lenders on the other. The IMF has long noted that where the government is permitted to exercise a greater degree of control over the agenda, this can significantly help strengthen the domestic prospects of ‘reform’measures (Boughton and Mourmouras 2002,19–21). Then again, programme review reports frequently comment that party-political contestation, reflecting broader social discontent, caused difficulties for governing parties in negotiations (IMF 2010c,2012c, 26, 2011a, 35, 2012a, 20). Studies of fiscal consolidation programmes find that the possibility of creating goal-oriented coalitions is a key variable in explaining outcomes (Hallerberg, Strauch, and von Hagen 2007). Coalitionbuilding capacity would be expected to be similar important in explaining governments’relations with the Troika. Conflict in the wider society became problematic in the negotiating process with the Troika if it was open to being mediated through parliamentary representation. Thus party system fragmentation is not necessarily the main variable of interest here: of greater significance is the degree of ideological differentiation of the parties (Hernández and Kriesi 2016). Where the main parties are closer to each other’s ideological position in policy space, the opposition is less likely to provide a fundamental challenge to imperatives of fiscal consolidation, but to accept it as a short-term inevitability. Where parties are further apart they are better positioned to channel wider social protest into parliamentary representation, and more likely to have an incentive to challenge the legitimacy of the government’s commitment to the austerity measures (Hutter, Kriesi, and Vidal 2018; Hobolt and Tilley 2016; Mauro 2011). Austerity has electoral costs for incumbents, and the ‘logic of appropriateness’of a particular policy mix can be problematic for them (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004, 667; Mulas-Granados 2004). The second facet of government relations with the Troika is the process of implementing the terms of the agreement. The interplay between government commitments (to the lenders) and its capacity to implement the policy commitments (in the wider society) can be framed in terms of an ‘implementation gap’, based on a conception of the policy process as a rational process of delivery to achieve outcomes that are measurable and that run to a specified timetable (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier 1993). The implementation side of loan programmes therefore depends on the structure and functioning of the public administration system. Three features of public administration may be identified as particularly relevant here. The first is the technicalrational capabilities of the public bureaucracy, that is, the availability of high-quality data to enable evidence-based policy-making and reform implementation (Ongaro 2009; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017; Head 2016). The second is the effectiveness of the public administration in the sense of the organizational capacity to put policy into effect through clear lines of accountability and effective coordination between departments, agencies, and across networks (Peters 2014). The third is the quality of the public administration in the sense of its independence of political patronage and clientelism, and its capacity for impartiality in its relations with civil society (Mastenbroek and Martinsen 2017; Teorell 2009; Larraburu et al. 2018). Given the exigencies of policy implementation, Bird’s comment is hardly surprising that effective implementation all too often ‘lies on a knife edge’(Bird 1998, 107). We have identified two dimensions of relations with the Troika governing domestic ownership: agenda-setting and programme implementation. Ideological polarization in PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1267 the party system is central to the nature of government engagement in agenda-setting negotiations about timing, prioritization, and composition of reform efforts. Programme implementation under Troika oversight depends not only on government effort but also on organizational features of the administrative system itself. These insights guide our further inquiries. Methodology and case selection This paper is a theoretically-guided, structured-focused comparison of three cases to trace the operation of the explanatory variables we propose in order to account for the outcomes of interest (George and Bennett 2005; Gerring 2007; Bennett and Elman 2006). The explanatory variables are the domestic factors shaping the agenda-setting and policy implementation aspects of the programmes. The main indicators here are the ideological polarization of parties, and the effectiveness of the administrative system. The ultimate outcome stimulating our inquiry is the observation that all three countries display successful implementation of and exit from loan programmes. These three countries were the only ones in their class of loan programme prior to the establishment of the permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) (European Stability Mechanism 2017b,5–6). 1 Ireland exited its loan programme early at the end of 2013, and Portugal did so on target in 2014. Greece was obliged to enter a second loan programme in 2012 and a third in 2015, before achieving its successful though delayed exit in August 2018. The outcome of interest in this paper is therefore the variation in the type of engagement each of these three countries had with the Troika and how this varied over time with reference to our two key explanatory variables (Seawright and Gerring 2008; Goertz and Mahoney 2012). Our analysis draws upon primary documentation from Troika reports and extensive use of secondary sources. We substantiate core claims through interviews with key informants from government, public administration, and civil society in each of the three countries. These are drawn from a wider set of interviews undertaken between 2012 and 2018. Details of the interviews directly cited in this paper are provided in the Appendix. Profiling the indicators There is equifinality of outcome between the three cases in their high scores on both total fiscal effort and overall programme compliance. All three countries had excellent overall scores on the implementation record of programme conditionalities: over 90% in Ireland and 80% in Portugal; and almost 80% in total in Greece’s second programme (and a similar outcome by the end of the third programme in 2018), based on the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangement (MONA) database (Terzi 2015,Figures 2 and 3). All three were the leaders in the OECD scoreboard of ‘overall reform responsiveness’between 2007 and 2014 (OECD 2015,Fig.4.2). The loan programmes involved ambitious targets for deficit reduction (Kickert and Randma-Liiv 2015). These are summarized in Table 1. On the key criterion of fiscal consolidation, between 2009 and 2012 Greece achieved an 11-percentage-point improvement in its primary fiscal balance, Ireland 1268 N. HARDIMAN ET AL. 8 points, and Portugal 7 (OECD 2012). Greece’sfiscal structural adjustment amounted to around 16 per cent of GDP between 2010 and 2015, and 2016 and 2017 saw further compliance taking place, even achieving primary fiscal surpluses by 2016 (IMF 2017; Eurostat 2018a). Programme compliance, economic performance, social indicators Profiling deficit performance confirms that all three countries ultimately met their objectives. But it also shows that they did so at different rates: fiscal targets were broadly met on target in Ireland, involved some rescheduling in Portugal, and were subject to much variation in Greece. Performance on the fiscal deficit, the principal measure of fiscal consolidation, is summarized in Figure 1 below. Greece’s starting position was more problematic than the other two in that there were concerns about its debt sustainability from the outset. Concern about the scale of debt write-offnecessary for programme sustainability and indeed legitimacy was aired within the Troika from the outset but only later publicly acknowledged (IMF Independent Evaluation Office 2016). Contextual conditions also hindered recovery prospects: the fall in demand across the Eurozone was larger than anticipated, and ‘the Troika probably underestimated in its initial assessment the negative externalities across the euro area stemming from the spread of the crisis from the periphery to the core’(Pisani-Ferry, Sapir, and Wolff2013, 101). Variable economic performance and experiences of hardship set the scene for social discontent and protest against the loan programmes, and the consequent protests contributed to the periodic ‘reform fatigue’among governments noted by the international lenders. Figures 2 and 3give an indication of the wider economic and social impact of the loan programmes. Table 1. Principal elements of the loan programmes. Country Fiscal adjustment Greece Programme 1, May 2010 to May 2013 €110bn (€73bn was disbursed) or 18% of GDP. Primary balance from a deficit of 8.5% of GDP in 2009 to a surplus of just below 6% of GDP in 2013–14. Current account deficit to a level 2–3% of GDP) a 10% of GDP deficit in 2009 Programme 2, March 2012May 2015 €134bn. Given implementation difficulties, over €130bn was not disbursed. Primary budget deficit of 1% in 2012 and 4.5% in 2014 and thereafter. Debt restructuring with a nominal haircut of 53.5%. Programme 3, August 2015August 2018 €86bn, Primary surplus targets of −0.25, 0.5, 1.75 and 3.5% of GDP in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and beyond, respectively A medium-term primary surplus of 3.5% of GDP until 2022. Upon programme exit in August 2018, Greece is required to maintain a primary fiscal surplus of 3.5% of GDP until 2022 and 2.2% until 2060. Portugal May 2011 –June 2014 €78bn or 44.3% of GDP Deficit to be cut from 11% in 2010, 4.5% in 2012, and just over 2% by 2013. Ireland Dec 2010Dec 2013 €85bn or some 40% GDP. Deficit of 11.7% (net of the costs of bank recapitalization) to be cut from 7% in 2012 to below 3% by 2014. Source: Country loan programme documents. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1269 Figure 2 shows the performance of GDP and unemployment associated with fiscal consolidation. Real GDP growth assumptions regularly shifted, as earlier projections consistently proved too optimistic (European Stability Mechanism 2017a, 24). Using 2010 as a base, the index of GDP in 2017 in Ireland was 161 (even if overstated by super-normal FDI profit-shifting activities); in Portugal it had regained 100; but in Greece it was 83, indicating the differential scale of real wealth destruction and the difficulty of devising a sustainable pathway to recovery (Eurostat 2018a). Declining living standards contributed to the reform or ‘austerity’fatigue that was associated with more problematic engagement with the Troika. Figure 3 provides some indication of variation in the degree of hardship. This charts ‘at risk of poverty’(after income transfers) as an indicator of effects of fiscal retrenchment, and ‘unmet healthcare needs’as a proxy for decline in access to and quality of social services (Eurostat 2018b). These contextual conditions were most problematic in Greece, less so in Portugal, and least so in Ireland. Agenda-setting and policy implementation indicators We now turn to indicators of countries’capacities to engage in constructive agendasetting negotiations with the Troika, and to secure effective implementation of their loan programme. Each of these is operationalized with reference to a set of indicators that have been theoretically identified as central to the capacities we are interested in. On Dalton’s index of party system polarization, Ireland had the sixth lowest aggregate score out of 29 cases, while Portugal was in the medium-level position with the eleventh-highest score (Dalton 2008, 906). Other sources indicate that -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 General government fiscal deficit, % GDP Greece Portugal Ireland* Figure 1. General government fiscal deficit, % GDP. Source: Eurostat (2018a). 1270 N. HARDIMAN ET AL. polarization in Greece was on average higher than in either of the other two cases (Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou 2013; Rori 2016). However left-right party polarization is not necessarily a constant but can ebb and flow over time, depending on circumstances: polarization is inherently political and relational (Dellepiane-Avellaneda and Hardiman 2015; Somer and Jennifer 2019). The most dramatic instance of this may be seen in the narrowing of Greek ideological polarization during the 1990s and 2000s and an ideological convergence toward the centre, which was disrupted by the crisis, thus opening space for new social protest mobilization and new polarization (Andreadis and Stavrakakis 2019). In Portugal, the crisis enforced some initial convergence across the established left-right cleavage. But the experience of fiscal retrenchment quickly stimulated a renewal of strong opposition on the left (Altiparmakis and Lorenzini 2018, 83, 85; Accornero and Ramos Pinto 2015). In Ireland the left-right cleavage was traditionally weak, and polarization was low; this did not change substantially (Costello 2017). On administrative capacity for policy implementation, the relevant criteria are the availability of high-quality technical economic and social data, good institutional coordination, and low levels of clientelism. As a proxy for the availability of quality policyrelevant data, we use performance budgeting practices (OECD 2018, 127). Among 32 OECD countries surveyed, Ireland ranked 14 th , and Portugal 28th. Portugal had levelpegged Greece in 2011 but had fallen back by 2018. Greece, ranking 20 th in 2018, had improved its score since 2011; Ireland’s relative position was largely unchanged. On a widely-used index of administrative coordination for ‘effective implementation’, Ireland and Portugal both score 6.4 (in 2018), and (unlike Greece) both had very good scores for government efficiency and ministerial compliance. Greece at 4.9 has particularly low scores for task funding and for national standard-setting (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2018). 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Unemployment GDP GDP and unemployment Greece Portugal Ireland Greece Portugal Ireland Figure 2. GDP and unemployment. Source: Eurostat (2018a). PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1271 Considering the indicator of administrative impartiality, Greece’s state had long featured strong networks of clientelism, rooting parties in distinct social support bases, and extending into many public service sectors, particularly through trade union membership, amounting even to state capture (Boughton and Mourmouras 2002,10–12). In line with analyses by both Crozier and Featherstone, it has been described as a ‘société bloquée’and a ‘quasi-Weberian hierarchical bureaucracy’(Ladi 2014, 192, italics in original). In contrast, Portuguese and Irish political parties secured electoral support more diffusely (Afonso, Zartaloudis, and Papadopoulos 2014; Mainwaring and Sean 2019). The Corruption Perceptions Index is a wellknown indicator of the quality of public governance. Ireland regularly rated about 8 on its 10-point scale between 1995 and 2010, while Portugal averaged around 6 and Greece 4 (Koulovatianos and Tsoukalis 2015). In 2018, Ireland ranked 18 th of 180 countries with a score of 73 out of 100. Portugal was 30 th with 64, while Greece ranked 67 th with a score of 45 (Transparency International 2018). Together, these indicators suggest a pattern of anticipated degrees of difficulty in managing relations with the Troika. We summarize the preceding discussion in Table 2. These indicators lead us to expect that both agenda-setting and programme implementation capacity would be highest in Ireland, somewhat difficult in Portugal, and most problematic in Greece. Pathways toward programme compliance In this section we assess the significance of our key variables in accounting for variation in the extent of domestic ownership of loan programmes, looking at the scale of conflict over agenda-setting and implementation between governments and 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 At risk of income poverty sdeenerachtlaehtemnU Poverty, healthcare needs Greece Portugal Ireland EU28 Greece Portugal Ireland EU28 Figure 3. Poverty and healthcare needs. Source: (Eurostat 2018b). 1272 N. HARDIMAN ET AL. relations with the Troika were the least problematic though still conflictual, Portugal’s more so, and Greece’s the most. Engagement along the two dimensions in question was not a static process: austerity itself had far-reaching consequences that were felt both economically and politically, feeding back into the nature of engagement with the loan programmes. Dealing with the Troika engendered new conflict structures and veto players, which strengthened social movements and mobilized new electoral alliances in opposition both to austerity and to ‘old politics’(Hutter, Kriesi, and Vidal 2018). One of the emergent features of the loan programmes, from the Troika perspective, was the relative weakness of its involvement in social dialogue, and the problems this posed for domestic political legitimacy and sustainability. Surveillance became more formalized with the introduction of Regulation (EU) No 472/2013 in May 2013, which accorded greater prominence to the obligation to consult formally with social interests and to have regard to institutions of wage formation (European Parliament 2013, 14). However, enhanced obligation to consult came too late to be of much relevance in Ireland; it only affected the final phase of the programmes in Portugal; and it came late in Greece’s experience. National social interests reported frequently that consultations were not substantive, that meetings between civil society organization, including trade unions, were perfunctory, and that the Troika representatives were unresponsive to the concerns that were presented to them. Table 3. Country experiences in light of expectations. Performance on negotiating capacity Cross-party ideational alliances on programme legitimacy Performance on implementation capacity Structure, functioning, and quality of public administration Ireland Low pre-crisis party polarization; adherence across governments to main terms of Troika conditionality 2010–11 and 2011–13 period Effective negotiations Reorganization of central government and creation of new institutions to manage implementation of Troika conditionality Efficient implementation Portugal Pre-crisis left-right polarization; reluctant PS commitment to all-party loan; increased polarization 2011–14. Highly committed centre-right, in a context of high social conflict; intra-government turbulence Problematic negotiation stance, though achieved some changes to conditionality Reorganization of central government and creation of new institutions to manage implementation of Troika conditionality Fairly efficient implementation, though some societal resistance to structural reform requirements, esp on labour market institutions Greece The crisis intensified cross-party divisions, in a rolling process of programme acceptance: PASOK in 2010, ND in 2012, Syriza in 2015, variable smaller party views. Fragmentation and reconstitution of the party system, and alternation of elected and non-elected governments, produced discontinuity. Medium-good negotiating capacity 2011–2015, achieving renegotiation of fiscal targets in light of good compliance; highly conflictual in 2015; all-party assent but lower government negotiating capacity 2015–18. EU-led administrative capacity building was introduced to overcome technical difficulties, but integration was problematic. Disagreement over priorities between the Troika on one hand and EU Task Force and the Greek public administration on the other. Short time-scale for change and personnel cutbacks further complicated efforts at administrative upgrading. Cross-department and inter-agency coordination was problematic. Party-political networks increased resistance to structural reform implementation. Very good fiscal compliance record 2010–11, 2012–15, 2015–18, depending on party composition; more problematic structural adjustment implementation PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1279 In 2017 the European authorities, in a far-reaching evaluation of past programmes, recognized that the politics of domestic engagement and programme legitimation had been insufficiently attended to under the Troika. Paradoxically, government dissatisfaction with its engagement with the Troika was greatest in Ireland, perhaps precisely because of its high level of both political and administrative capacity in complying with programme conditionality (European Stability Mechanism 2017a, 72). Prominent among the recommendations of the ESM report were the need to attend more carefully to the political credibility, domestic acceptability, and transparency of programmes; to ensure that programme design should have clear objectives and priorities; and to engage more fully and extensively with civil society representatives (European Stability Mechanism 2017a,79–81). This paper has shown that the concept of ‘domestic ownership’continues to have considerable value in accounting for domestic implementation of loan programmes, and that clearer conceptualization and specification of relevant empirical indicators can give it real analytical traction. An additional implication of this analysis is that issues of political legitimation were also important for governments’capacity for technical compliance and implementation, and where these are over-ridden, the prospects for stable implementation and successful programme completion are likely to be more problematic. Notes 1. The EU devised two emergency time-limited temporary assistance mechanisms in response to the crises in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal: the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM). The EU’s Greek Loan Facility of May 2010 was a special bilateral loans arrangement, pooled by the Commission and supported by an IMF Stand-By Arrangement. The Council’s consent was conditional upon Greece’s commitment to deficit reduction (Decision 2010/320/EU and Decision 2013/6/EU). In the case of Ireland and Portugal, EFSM was provided for by Regulation N° 407/2010 and decisions of the Council. After September 2012 these arrangements were replaced by the permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to deal with any new bailout requirements. Like the temporary programmes, the ESM was a joint EU-IMF structure. But the pre-existing loan programmes to Greece (except the third), Ireland, and Portugal continued to be dealt with under the terms of the EFSF and EFSM: this makes them distinctive. The assistance to Spain’s government to support restructuring of the banking sector in December 2012 and February 2013 and the ‘bail-in’as a partial solution to the financial crisis in Cyprus (2013–2016) were both managed under the permanent ESM scheme; so too was the third Greek loan programme of 2015. 2. ‘Certain elements of the financial part of the Programme were presented as non-negotiable by the Troika.. These included the higher-than-standard capital ratio required for the banks, a programme of rapid deleveraging of the banks. . . and the early transfer of deposits out of the failed banks. Given the absence of a risk-sharing element for the banking part of the Programme, parts of these initiatives required very careful implementation (fortunately successful) to avoid becoming counterproductive’(Central Bank of Ireland 2013). Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Carmel Hannan, Walter Kickert, Conor Little, Kevin Saude, Imre Szabo, Ben Tonra, Krishna Vadlamannati, Eva Wegner, Owen Worth, and three anonymous reviewers, for helpful comments. All shortcomings are of course our own. Joaquim Filipe Araújo wishes to acknowledge his funding for this project from the Research Centre in Political Science (UID/ CPO/0758/2019) at the University of Minho, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science. 1280 N. HARDIMAN ET AL. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding The Portuguese portion of this study was conducted at the Research Centre in Political Science [UID/CPO/0758/2019], University of Minho, and was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds. Notes on contributors Niamh Hardiman is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy in UCD School of Politics and International Relations, a Research Fellow and member of the Executive of UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, and a Fellow of UCD Dublin European Institute. She studied in UCD and in Nuffield College, Oxford. She was Tutor in Politics and a Fellow of Somerville College Oxford before moving to UCD. She is the Director of the interdisciplinary UCD Public Policy Programme. Her research interests include the political economy of European growth and development, the politics of fiscal policy, political-administrative relationships, and the implications of the crisis for the European periphery. Calliope Spanou is Professor of Administrative Science and Public Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She studied Public Law and Political Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and obtained a Doctorat d’Etat en Science Politique – Science Administrative at the Université de Picardie, Amiens. She was the Greek Deputy Ombudsman from 2003 to 2011, and Ombudsman from 2011 to 2015. She has conducted research and teaching visits to the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence; the Universities of Picardy, Paris II; Paris-Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines; and the Centre for European Studies, Nuffield College, Oxford, among others. Her research interests range from issues in public administration and civil service reform to public policies including structural reforms, environmental and social policy, administrative policies, citizen-administration relations, administration and democracy, and Europeanization. Joaquim Filipe Araújo is Associate Professor of Public Management, School of Economics and Management, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. His PhD in Public Administration is from the University of Exeter, UK. His research interests are in public management, public sector reform, local government, and governance. Muiris MacCarthaigh is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. His PhD is from University College Dublin. His research engages with a variety of debates within and between political science and public sector governance, and in particular the role played by administrative systems (and the organisations within them) in translating political preferences into policy outcomes. ORCID Niamh Hardiman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3233-0181 Calliope Spanou http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5176-2257 Joaquim Filipe Araújo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8531-6036 Muiris MacCarthaigh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2296-3049 References Accornero, G., and P. R. Pinto. 2015.“‘Mild Mannered?’Protest and Mobilisation in Portugal under Austerity, 2010-2013.”West European Politics 38 (3): 491–515. doi:10.1080/01402382.2014.937587. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1281 Afonso, A., S. Zartaloudis, and Y. Papadopoulos. 2014.“How Party Linkages Shape Austerity Politics: Clientelism and Fiscal Adjustment in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone Crisis.”Journal of European Public Policy 22 (3): 315–334. doi:10.1080/13501763.2014.964644. 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PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REVIEW 1285 Appendix –interviewees cited Interviewees –Ireland IR1 Senior Department of Finance official, 19 July 2017 IR2 Political adviser, 1 July 2014 IR3 Senior trade union movement official, 28 March 2017 IR4 Senior trade union leader, 9 January 2017 IR5 Labour Party government minister (2011–2016), 10 and 16 November 2016 Interviewees –Portugal PT1 Former Senior Directorate General for Justice Policy official, 26 March 2019. PT2 Senior Directorate General for Justice Policy official, 26 March 2019. PT3 Senior Tax and Customs Authority official, 27 March 2019. PT4 Senior Directorate General of Social Security Official, 27 March 2019. Interviewees –Greece GR1 Minister of Administrative Reform (1 st MoU) 3 August 2018 GR2 Minister of Administrative Reform (2 nd MoU), 3May 2018 GR3 Junior Minister of Administrative Reform (1 st -2 nd MoU), September2018 GR4 Athens-based official of the EU Task Force for Greece, 8 April 2017 and 18 September 2018 GR5 Brussels-based official of the EU Task Force for Greece, 13 July 2018 1286 N. HARDIMAN ET AL.