The aim of this chapter is to offer a theoretical framework for studying and understanding hegemonic discourses and their function and effects. It is suggested that the domination of a hegemonic discourse signifies a complex communication process that directly involves national discursive realities, domestic institutional arrangements and agents/subjects. Therefore what is under scrutiny in this chapter is this communication process itself, in order to illustrate what this process signifies, how it should be conceptualised, what are its constitutive elements, and how concepts such as change and continuity should be interpreted in this context. In real terms the concept of hegemonic...

Why Greece and Ireland in a pair comparison? There are a number of reasons that make the comparison of these two countries interesting, especially with regard to the communication of globalisation discourse. These factors include their historical evolution, their socioeconomic development since their EU membership, their political culture and their contrasting models of political economy. Moreover, the choice of two countries within the same ‘regional block’ reduces the independent variables which are involved in the communication of globalisation discourse. Regional integration processes, such as the EU, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN),...

The literature on the emergence of globalisation discourse in specific countries is not as developed as one would expect. Significant contributions in this regard include the works by Hay (2001) and Kjaer and Pedersen (2001) on the diffusion/translation of neoliberal norms in the UK and Denmark respectively. The analysis of the deployment of the discourse of globalisation by New Labour in Britain, by Hay and Watson (1999), has also been an important contribution. Hay and Watson argued that the impact of globalisation on the British political economy ‘may be more rhetorical than substantive,but no less real for this’ (ibid.:...

The study of the materialisation of globalisation discourse in Greece aims to examine the effect that this discourse had in the reproduction of the Greek public discourse and politico-economic system. Some broader contextualisation might be helpful here. It was argued in chapter 2 that 1990 could be considered a turning point for Greek politics. In the same framework it can also be argued that 1996 signified both the consolidation of this turning point and a new significant shift in Greek public discourse. In particular in 1996 Andreas Papandreou, the historical leader of PASOK, who had returned to power with the...

As argued in chapter 2 the decade of the 1990s signified a turning point for the Irish political system. The well-established ‘Fianna Fáil versus the rest’ political pattern – which had dominated the Irish political life for approximately fifty years (1948–89) – ceased to define Irish politics and gave way to a ‘new politics of coalitionmaking’ (Mair, 1999). Moreover, the turn from the 1980s to the 1990s witnessed the significant empowerment of the socio-economic role of the institution of ‘social partnership’. Within this context a new public discourse started to emerge, with new points of references and signifiers (e.g....

The aim of this chapter is twofold. First it offers a comparison of the communication of globalisation discourse in Greece and Ireland. Thus it summarises, juxtaposes and compares the main findings of chapters 3 and 4. Second, it analyses how the differences between Greece and Ireland can be explained, and draws some general conclusions on the materialisation of globalisation discourse.

Our research revealed two very different modes of materialisation of globalisation discourse. In Greece the discourse of globalisation emerged as a new zone of contestation, as a new point of reference through which political parties came to reconceptualise what was...

The explanations for the different facets of the hegemonic discourse of globalisation can be grouped together into three broad categories: explanations that focus on the nature of domestic economy; explanations that focus more broadly on domestic structures, and especially on the domestic structures of interest representation and state–society relations; and, finally, explanations that try to combine these two factors, i.e. nature of domestic economy and domestic structures. These three different explanations can be translated into the following research questions.

1. Is the nature of political economy sufficient to account for the materialisation process of globalisation discourse? Here, the focus is...