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A wave of privatisation is unfolding in Europe in the wake of the financial crisis, but it has yet to receive serious scholarly attention. This paper examines the case of Ireland, where an austerity strategy and European Union International Monetary Fund bailout conditionality have given impetus to the transfer of public assets to the private sector. Theoretically, the paper explains the roots of the phenomenon with reference to a reformulated concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' whose usefulness lies in emphasising the politico-economic drivers of privatisation, which have been neglected in the mainstream literature. A typology is presented that argues that accumulation by dispossession manifests itself, in practice, through four main processes: (1) private repossession of assets nationalised during the financial crisis; (2) restructuring of state-owned enterprises; (3) commodification of assets and services hitherto located outside the market; and (4) privatised stimulus through public-private partnerships. The paper's framework should be useful to conceptualise ongoing privatisation processes in other European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to make sense of the Greek crisis Odyssey and the attendant restructuring of the economy, this article focuses on the spatial dynamics of the crisis. To this end, it builds on Harvey's concept of accumulation by dispossession and Gramscian hegemony to evaluate the crisis remedy administered to Greece. An attempt is made to demonstrate dispossession of land, public resources and natural assets as a hegemonic project, as it takes place, linked to specific 'spatio-temporal fixes' of capital during and after the crisis, to be either welcomed or opposed by different stakeholders in civil society and local communities. Assessing the new institutional setting that was enforced upon Greece by its creditors, the Greek case of land dispossession and grabbing is discussed, focusing on representative 'optimum' investment instances to question the rationale and the effectiveness of the emerging post-crisis neoliberal model of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the 2008 financial crisis and how it has impacted on countries across the globe, it is striking how few scholars have critically analysed why and how past crises have created opportunities for states and capitalists to exploit the so-called ‘bottom of the pyramid consumers’ in the developing world. By situating the analysis within the wider neoliberalization processes, this article seeks to denaturalize the extension of consumer credit to the growing number of informal sector workers who comprise the relative surplus population in Mexico. Drawing on an historical materialist frame, I outline a key feature of the neoliberal Mexican state—what I refer to as the debtfare state—that has served to facilitate accumulation by dispossession strategies. These neoliberal strategies serve to expose and integrate spaces of informality into different facets of the capitalist market, i.e. the credit system, without including them ‘inside’ the capital relation–reproducing spaces of marginality and insecurity. En el contexto de la crisis financiera de 2008 y la forma como ha impactado a los países de todo el mundo, es impresionante cómo pocos académicos han analizado críticamente, porqué y cómo las crisis pasadas han creado oportunidades para estados y capitalistas para explotar a lo que se ha llamado ‘base de la pirámide de consumidores’ en el mundo en desarrollo. Este artículo busca desnaturalizar la extensión del crédito del consumidor al creciente número del sector de trabajadores que comprende el excedente relativo de población en México, situando el análisis dentro de los procesos de neoliberalización más amplios. A partir de un marco materialista histórico, describo una característica clave del estado mexicano neoliberal—a lo que me refiero como estado debtfare—que se ha servido para facilitar la acumulación por medio de estrategias de expropiación. Estas estrategias neoliberales sirven para exponer e integrar espacios de informalidad dentro de diferentes facetas del mercado capitalista, es decir el sistema de crédito, sin incluirlos ‘dentro’ de la relación del capital—reproduciendo espacios de marginalidad e inseguridad. 在2008年金融危机及它如何影响了世界各国的背景下，批判地分析过去的危机为何及如何为国家和资本家们创造了机会以剥削发展中世界所谓的“金字塔底层消费者”，这样的学者是如此之少。通过把分析置于更广泛的新自由化进程之内，本文寻求使消费者信贷扩展到人数不断增多的非正式部门工人这一现象非自然化，这些工人组成为墨西哥的相对剩余人口。利用一种历史唯物主义的架构，我勾画了新自由主义墨西哥国家（我称之为债务国家 ，它已服务于以剥夺战略促进积累）的一个关键特征。这些新自由主义战略服务于揭开各种非正式空间，将其整合进资本主义市场即信贷体系的不同方面，而不把它们纳入资本关系，对边缘和不安全空间进行再生产。 2008년 금융위기와 그것이 세계에 준 충격 맥락에서 놀랍게도 과거 위기가 국가와 자본가들에게 소위 개발 도상국에서 ‘피라밋 하단’으로 불리는 소비자들을 착취할 수 있는 기회를 만든 것을 비판적으로 분석하는 학자는 대단히 적다. 이 글은 신자유주의화 과정을 분석하여 멕시코에서 상대적인 잉여 인구를 구성하고 있는 비공식 부문 노동자들에게 소비자 크레딧을 확대하는 것을 탈자연주의화하고자 한다. 사적 유물론적 틀을 갖고 탈취 전략으로 축적을 촉진시키는데 기여한 - 부채국가(debtfare state)라고 부른 - 신자유주의 멕시코 국가의 핵심적인 내용을 다룬다. 이러한 신자유주의 전략들은 비공식성의 공간을 다양한 자본주의 시장 즉, 자본 관계 내부로 포함시키지 않고, 주변성과 불안의 공간을 재생산하는 크레딧 시스템에 노출시키고 또한 통합하는데 기여한다. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]