Valur Ingimundarson - Icelands Financial Crisis: The Politics of Blame, Protest, and Reconstruction

Icelands Financial Crisis

Being the first casualty of the international financial crisis, Iceland was, in many ways, turned into a laboratory when it came to responding to one of the largest corporate failures on record.

This edited volume offers the most wide-ranging treatment of the Icelandic financial crisis and its political, economic, social, and constitutional consequences. Interdisciplinary, with contributions from historians, economists, sociologists, legal scholars, political scientists, and philosophers, it also compares and contrasts the Icelandic experience with other national and global crises. It examines the economic magnitude of the crisis, the social and political responses, and the unique transitional justice mechanisms used to deal with it. It studies both backward-looking elements, including a societal and legal reckoningwhich included the indictment of a prime minister and jailing of leading bankers for their part in the financial crisisand forward-looking features, such as an attempt to rewrite the Icelandic constitution. Throughout, it underscores the contemporary relevance of the Icelandic case. While the Icelandic economic recovery has been much quicker than expected, it shows that public faith in political elites has not been restored. A case in point was the sudden resignation of the Icelandic Prime Minister following mass protests in the spring of 2016. It resulted from a revelationstemming from the Panama Papers leaksthat he had owned an offshore company with his wife, with large claims on the collapsed Icelandic banks.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, policy-makers, and students of the financial crisis in such fields as European politics, international political economy, comparative politics, sociology, economics, contemporary history, and more broadly the social sciences and humanities.

Valur Ingimundarson is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Iceland and the chair of the Board of the EDDACenter of Excellence.

Philippe Urfalino is a senior researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and professor at the cole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France.

Irma Erlingsdttir is Associate Professor of French Contemporary Literature at the University of Iceland and director of EDDACenter of Excellence; the United Nations University Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme (UNU-GEST); and Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference (RIKK), University of Iceland.

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117 European Union Enlargement
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119 European Space Policy
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120 Policy Making at the Second Tier of Local Government in Europe
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121 The Politics of Trauma and Peace-Building
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122 Eurozone Politics
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124 Unequal Europe
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125 Clientelism and Economic Policy
Greece and the Crisis
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127 Icelands Financial Crisis
The Politics of Blame, Protest, and Reconstruction
Edited by Valur Ingimundarson, Philippe Urfalino and Irma Erlingsdttir

Icelands Financial Crisis

The politics of blame, protest, and reconstruction

Edited by
Valur Ingimundarson, Philippe Urfalino and Irma Erlingsdttir

First published 2016

by Routledge

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2016 Selection and editorial matter: Valur Ingimundarson, Philippe Urfalino and Irma Erlingsdttir; individual chapters: the contributors

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Valur Ingimundarson, editor. | Urfalino, Philippe, editor. | Irma Erlingsdottir, editor.

Title: Icelands financial crisis : the politics of blame, protest, and reconstruction / editors, Valur Ingimundarson, Philippe Urfalino, Irma Erlingsdottir.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. |

Series: Routledge advances in european politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016002732| ISBN 9781138669741 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315618036 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Financial crisesIceland. | FinanceIcelandHistory21st century. | IcelandEconomic policy. | IcelandEconomic conditions21st century. | IcelandPolitics and government21st century.

Classification: LCC HB3798 .I34 2016 | DDC 330.94912/06dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002732

ISBN: 978-1-138-66974-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-61803-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents

VALUR INGIMUNDARSON, PHILIPPE URFALINO, AND IRMA ERLINGSDTTIR

GYLFI ZOEGA

GUDRUN JOHNSEN

STEFN LAFSSON

JN GUNNAR BERNBURG AND ANNA SOFFA VKINGSDTTIR

HELGA KRISTN HALLGRMSDTTIR AND EMMANUEL BRUNET-JAILLY

VILHJLMUR RNASON

VALUR INGIMUNDARSON

STEFN LAFSSON

JON ELSTER

THORVALDUR GYLFASON

SALVR NORDAL

PASQUALE PASQUINO

BJRG THORARENSEN

JN LAFSSON