This thesis offers a qualitative structured and focused comparison of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Global Financial Crisis of the 2010s, specifically focusing on Greece. Focusing on the key factors that amplified the two crises' impact and shaped Greece's immediate response makes an important contribution to Greek Political Economy scholarship and the burgeoning debates on continuity and change and economic crises, highlighting some original parallels between these two periods of economic turbulence. This thesis immerses insights from three scholarly disciplines - Political Economy, Political Science, and Economic History. While it derives three building blocks from International Political Economy (conditionality, credibility, and external dependence) to bridge the two case studies with the international context, it also identifies five perennial features characterising the Greek-specific setting (cultural dualism and zero-sum politics, patronage politics, étatism, poor public administration, and weak reform capacity) â framed as the path-dependent pathogens â as conditioning factors for Greece's response to both crises. Using the single-country case study method, this thesis presents a robust, theoretically informed, and empirically grounded historical perspective. It adopts a two-fold methodological approach, combining Comparative Historical Analysis (CHA) and Historical Institutionalism (HI) theoretical framework. This innovative blend enables an insightful examination of Greece's political and economic systems, unearthing resilient path dependencies, providing a deeper understanding of the deeply entrenched historicity characterising the Greek-specific setting, and filling significant gaps in the existing literature. This thesis offers a critical contribution to understanding the cyclical nature of political and economic crises. By linking the post-1929 and post-2008 crises with Greeceâs perennial political economy features it hopes to serve as a pilot case for comparative studies on the country's experiences with economic crises while promoting the multi-dimensional approach of Historical Political Economy. Although centred on Greece, this thesis' findings and insights bear relevance for other peripheral countries characterised by chronic economic weakness and resistance to externally prescribed economic remedies. Thus, this thesis contributes to a broader understanding of economic crises in similar geopolitical contexts, paving the way for future research by highlighting the detrimental role of the domestic political economy against the backdrop of economic shocks.
- conditionality
- inter-war years
- path-dependence
- external dependence
- credibility
- Historical Political Economy
- Historical Comparative Analysis
- Eurozone Crisis
- Great Depression
- Historical Institutionalism
- Political Economy
- Economic Crisis
- Greece
- Greek Political Economy
- Greek Politics
Why does Greece fail? A comparative analysis of the economic crises of the 1930s and the 2010s
Kanellopoulos, K. (Author). 31 Dec 2023
Student thesis: Phd