Introduction

After more than a decade of austerity, it seems apt to reflect on a policy that is both everywhere and increasingly nowhere. The government drive to decrease public expenditure has fundamentally changed social and political life in Britain, and yet government claims that austerity has ‘done its job’ and is ending imply that by loosening the purse strings the damage caused to present and future life courses can quickly be reversed. Fundamentally, then, this book is motivated by pre-pandemic pronouncements of the beginning of the end of austerity in Britain. It asks, ‘what is austerity?’, and proceeds to interrogate the substance of the controversial political response to the financial crash of 2008, which sparked a period of economic recession in the UK and much of the world.

Although austerity only entered the public lexicon 14 years ago, this introductory chapter will outline how it is part of a longer-term strategy of neoliberal reform which impacts on many areas of the welfare state, especially that which is delivered through local government. Beginning in the late 1970s, there has been a prioritization of market relations, re-tasking the role of the state and individual responsibility in the UK, as well as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Beyond these neoliberal ‘heartlands’ (Jessop, 2016a), neoliberal policy adjustments have also occurred in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia as the notion that fiscal restraint can be a driver of economic development and prosperity has travelled to particular cities, regions and nation states (Peck and Tickell, 2002). Policies of privatization – first implemented in an effort to resolve the 1970s stagflation period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment – have been rolled out, and there has been an expansion of the role of finance in the economy (not only financial institutions but also private capital investments) owing to a belief that ‘big’ government militates against economic growth (Whiteside, 2016).

As a response to the 2008– 2009 recession and double dip of 2011– 2012, austerity has renewed and redoubled these pre-existing neoliberal commitments. There have been further dramatic cuts to public services. Many state benefits have been capped if not reduced. Wage increases for many have been held below inflation so that real wages have declined.