European Rule Regimes and Deepening Neoliberalism

Abstract

This chapter’s first section briefly reviews the development of neoliberalism in Europe and suggests that it has been driven, to a significant extent, by (transnational) industrial and financial interests. The second section discusses how key European rule regimes have been used to discipline and pressurise Ireland to adopt specific neoliberal fiscal and monetary strategies in more recent years and in particular, during the ongoing economic crisis, with the effect of deepening neoliberalism. Subsequent chapters discuss how Ireland has transferred, adapted and implemented such rules, revealing how neoliberalisation emerges from a multiplicity of sites at a number of spatial scales.