Examining facets of the hegemonic: the globalisation discourse in Greece and Ireland

This paper attempts to make a contribution to the study and understanding of the phenomenon of globalization and its interplay with national politico-economic systems. How did globalization resonate and/or dominate in different national contexts? What was the role of national political economies and domestic institutions in this process? What role did specific institutional actors played in it? Focusing on the materialization of globalization discourse in Greece and Ireland, the paper presents three main findings: (i) the reproduction of the Greek and Irish politico-economic systems during the 1990s was dominated, to a significant extent, by the same set of meanings and practices, (ii) the way in which this set of meanings and practices emerged in the two countries was fundamentally different: in Greece it defined a new zone of contestation, whereas in Ireland it defined a new zone of fundamental consensus, (iii) after the end of the 1990s, these two different facets of hegemonic globalization seemed to converge. The paper draws on these findings to examine the role of political economy and domestic institutions in the communication of the hegemonic discourse of globalization.