Bailouts and Nationalist Responses

It has been written that nationalistic sentiment is found when an austerity programme is introduced into a state, which intends to repay a proportion of its external debt [Rogers, 2010].  Payments are usually channelled to large (financial) institutions such as the EU, IMF or World Bank, or in some cases, foreign countries.  This was the case with regards to two particular states: Hungary and South Korea (ROK) [ibid].

However, perhaps these reactions have become a trend recently.  It has been seen of late (February 2011) how there have been large protests in Iceland, which has resulted in a rise in nationalist feeling, against repaying foreign governments, who initiated a bailout to cover losses incurred by a domestic bank.  In fact, a referendum is planned to see if, and how repayment will commence.

In 2010 it was documented how nationalist responses resulted from IMF-led bailouts in both Greece and the Ukraine.  These are interesting results.  Nationalist reactions may now be considered a sociological reality.  Perhaps the most significant signs to look for in the future would be to see if these tendencies continued within other states who have received a bailout from an external source.  Furthermore, it would be of interest to analyse the activities of nationalist parties within the aforementioned states, to guage the extent to which the bailout is used for campaigning/garnering support and funding etc.


Appendix 25/02/2011


Today sees a General Election in Ireland.  As a direct result of the IMF-led bailout of 2010, the ruling party Fianna Fáil is expected to lose power to the centre-right Fine Gael.  More significantly, Sinn Féin, a nationalist party is expected to double its amount of seats in the parliament.  Other independents are also predicted to do well, feeding on widespread anger towards all mainstream parties.