Julien Mercille

The Role of the Media in Sustaining Ireland's Housing Bubble

This paper examines Irish mainstream media coverage of the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and plunged Ireland into economic and financial crisis. It is shown that news organisations largely sustained the bubble until the property market collapsed. As such, news stories reflected the views and interests of the Irish corporate and governmental sectors, which had adopted neoliberal policies during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years (1990s to 2007). A political economic conceptualisation of the Irish media outlines four factors explaining why this is so: (1) news organisations have multiple links with the political and corporate establishment, of which they are part, thus sharing similar interests and viewpoints; (2) just like elite circles, they hold a neoliberal ideology, dominant during the boom years; (3) they feel pressures from advertisers, in particular, real estate companies; and (4) they rely heavily on ‘experts’ from elite institutions in reporting events. The last section presents a detailed empirical analysis of Irish media coverage (newspapers and television) of the housing bubble that confirms the above claims. It is shown that prior to the bubbles collapse, the media made little mention of it, remained vague about it or tried to refute claims that it even existed, thus sustaining it.

Violent Narco-Cartels or US Hegemony? The political economy of the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico

Abstract Mainstream analysis and commentary on drug trafficking and related violence in Mexico focuses overwhelmingly on the narco-cartels as sources of the problem and presents the US as a well intentioned player helping to conduct a ‘war on drugs’ out of concern for addiction, crime and violence. This article offers an alternative interpretation, grounded in critical political economy, showing that in addition to fuelling the narcotics industry in Mexico thanks to its large drug consumption and loose firearms regulations, the US shares much responsibility for its expansion thanks to its record of support for some of the main players in the drugs trade, such as the Mexican government and military, and by implementing neoliberal reforms that have increased the size of the narcotics industry. The war on drugs has served as a pretext to intervene in Mexican affairs and to protect US hegemonic projects such as nafta, rather than as a genuine attack on drug problems. In particular, the drugs war has been used repeatedly to repress dissent and popular opposition to neoliberal policies in Mexico. Finally, US banks have increased their profits by laundering drug money from Mexico and elsewhere; the failure to implement tighter regulations testifies to the power of the financial community in the US.

The Neoliberalization of Irish Higher Education under Austerity

This paper discusses the transformations that have taken place in Irish higher education under neoliberalism and, in particular, during the period of austerity since 2008. We adopt a critical political economic framework conceptualizing Ireland as a prototypical neoliberal state and maintain that the period of economic crisis since 2008 has witnessed a deepening of neoliberalism. We argue that restructuring in the education sector has been shaped by forces originating from the European Union, global institutions, as well as from the interests of Irish political and economic elites. We examine several aspects of the neoliberalization of the education sector, including privatization, commercialization, labor casualization and the erosion of work conditions. Empirically, the paper synthesizes and conceptualizes available data on neoliberalism and higher education in Ireland. Theoretically, it presents a useful framework to investigate similar cases in other countries.

Neoliberalism and the alcohol industry in Ireland

This paper sheds light on the development of the Irish alcohol industry and its regulation since the 1980s by situating it within the politico-economic context of neoliberalism at the national, European and global scales. First, a conceptualisation of neoliberalism is presented and the alcohol industry is related to it. Second, the connections between neoliberalism, the drinks industry and alcohol legislation are explained and illustrated at the three spatial scales mentioned above, emphasising the following components of neoliberalism: deregulation, liberalisation, commodification, free trade agreements and transnational capital flows. The paper provides a theoretical template for future research.

European Media Coverage of Argentina’s Debt Default and Recovery: distorting the lessons for Europe

Abstract In 2001 Argentina defaulted on its debts and then devalued its currency by abandoning the peso–dollar peg. The economy rebounded and has grown relatively strongly since then. This paper uses a critical political economy approach to first show that the Argentinian strategy finds support in the literature examining the effects of sovereign debt default, currency devaluation and fiscal consolidation on economic growth. Argentina is thus relevant to Europe’s ongoing crisis. The article then investigates European media coverage of the Argentinian experience through an examination of major newspapers’ stories between 2008 and 2013. It argues that the media have distorted the lessons of the Argentinian recovery by focusing on the negative consequences of default rather than its benefits; by emphasising the role of rising commodity export prices over domestic policy decisions in stimulating the economy; by opposing some aspects of government intervention in the economy even if the latter played a beneficial role; and by exaggerating the negative consequences of inflation. This distorted coverage is explained through reference to the media’s ideological role in the implementation of austerity policies in Europe.

Privatization in the Irish hospital sector since 1980

Background Privatization has transformed health care systems over the last several decades. This article examines trends in bed supply in Ireland between 1980 and 2015 within the context of government policy on bed provision in a system of inequitable access to care. Ireland has not published bed data on private hospitals since the 1980s, even if they comprise about one-quarter of all hospitals. However, this article presents, for the first time, annual bed data since the 1980s collected from private hospitals and used to trace the evolution of bed supply over time. Methods Bed data were collected for private Irish hospitals for the years 1980-2015, mainly through direct requests to hospitals. Additional sources included the Irish Medical Directory, private health insurance data, hospital company records and newspaper archives. Results Subject to data caveats explained in the article, between 1980 and 2015, total inpatient beds decreased by 25.5% nationally. Inpatient bed numbers in private for-profit (PFP) hospitals rose from 0 to 1075 but decreased from 9601 to 5216 in private not-for-profit (PNFP) hospitals and from 7028 to 6092 in public hospitals (using the Irish hospital classification, beds in private hospitals increased from 1518 to 1910 but decreased from 15 111 to 10 473 in public hospitals). Also, by 2015, 24.1% of PFP hospital beds were day beds, compared to 17.7% for PNFP and 15.7% for public hospitals (using the Irish classification, by 2015, day beds accounted for 23.8% of beds in private hospitals and 16.1% in public hospitals). Conclusions Trends in bed supply in Ireland between 1980 and 2015 are documented empirically for all Irish acute hospitals and contextualized within government policy on bed provision. The Irish acute hospital system has experienced privatization reforms supported by the government over the last several decades.

What is privatization? A political economy framework

This paper presents a political economic framework for understanding privatization. Its claims are illustrated empirically through examples from contemporary Europe. Theoretically, it starts with the concept of accumulation by dispossession, which refers to the conversion of non-capitalist spaces and practices into the capitalist sphere. This conversion occurs through privatization, liberalization, and marketization. The paper focuses on privatization and presents a schematic that outlines four forms it can take: corporatization, outsourcing, public–private partnerships, and divestiture/asset transfer. These are located on a continuum denoting the extent of private sector involvement. The schematic is an important methodological contribution that enables comparative research on privatization across economic sectors and geographical settings. It thus improves on the accumulation by dispossession literature, which has focused largely on case studies but neglected generic frameworks.

The Media-Entertainment Industry and the “War on Drugs” in Mexico:

Since 2006, Mexico has militarized its “war on drugs,” backed by the United States. Examination of this drug war from a critical political economic angle suggests that the neoliberal reforms implemented in Mexico over the past several decades have increased the size of the drug industry and that drug war rhetoric facilitates the containment of popular opposition to neoliberal policies. U.S. popular culture has contributed to legitimizing the drug war and making it more acceptable to the U.S. public. An analysis of selected movies, television series, and a video game shows that the themes presented in these productions are very similar to those conveyed by U.S. government officials and mainstream analysts. Indeed, popular culture messages reflect elite views of U.S. foreign policy because the media-entertainment industry is itself part of the corporate establishment. Desde 2006, México, con el apoyo de los Estados Unidos, ha militarizado su “guerra contra el narcotráfico.” Una crítica de esta guerra contra el narco de un punto de vista político-económico sugiere que las reformas neoliberales implementadas en México durante ya varias décadas han agrandado la industria de estupefacientes, y que la retórica de la guerra contra el narco facilita la contención de la oposición popular que se opone a la política neoliberal. Mientras tanto, en los Estados Unidos, la cultura popular ha contribuido a legitimar y hacer más aceptable la guerra contra el narco. Un análisis de películas y series de televisión seleccionadas, más un juego de video, muestra que los temas presentados en estas producciones son muy parecidos a los difundidos por oficiales del gobierno de Estados Unidos y analistas convencionales. De hecho, los mensajes de la cultura popular reflejan las perspectivas de la élite con respecto a la política exterior de los Estados Unidos porque los mismos medios de entretenimiento forman parte del establecimiento corporativo.

Mind the Gap: Security ‘Crises’ and the Geopolitics of US Military Spending

US politics seems to be chronically afflicted with high levels of military spending justified by security “crises”, the current upsurge under the Bush administration being only the latest episode in a long series. This paper addresses the question, “Why are the levels of US military spending so high?” to which it provides a “radical” geographical answer. Although in the conclusion I offer thoughts on how my points apply to the current situation, I do not claim that the analysis applies directly to the post-war period as a whole, but only to that of the case study, the bomber and missile gaps of 1955–1961, two successive “crises” that led to increases in defence expenditures. I argue that although the “immediate” causes of the “gaps” and ensuing military spending may be found at the national and local scales, some of their fundamental roots are to be located in US post-war plans to organise the global space of the capitalist world economy. I will show how such plans − as found in important declassified documents like NSC-68 and the Gaither Report as well as those related to the Vietnam War and counterinsurgency policies − explicitly called for military spending to maintain American hegemony. Moreover, those documents reveal geographical assumptions reminiscent of Mackinders geopolitics, hegemony and world-systems theories. Finally, examining the geopolitics and geoeconomics of US military spending makes a contribution to a subject to which geographers have paid only limited attention.

Cruel harvest : US intervention in the Afghan drug trade

Abbreviations Acknowledgements 1: Introduction 2: Perspectives 3: Rise to Prominence 4: From Forgotten State to Rogue State 5: To Afghanistan 6: Washington and the Afghan Drug Trade since 2001 7: Solutions 8: Conclusion: American Power, Drugs, and Drug Wars Notes Index