The second part of the chapter has two targets. The first section hones in on the positive cases highlighted by Alesina, Giavazzi, and others as examples of successful expansionary austerity because they form the countercase to the lessons learned from the 1930s: Denmark, Ireland, Australia and Sweden. I then juxtapose the experiences of these countries to the current state of the Eurozone to stress that even if these cases are granted positive status, which as we shall see is dubious at best, the conditions that made these cases possible are simply absent in Europe at the moment, especially the PIIGS. This makes the argument for expansionary austerity, at best, possible as a very special case, but wholly inappropriate as the general case.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 483