The Left and the crisis in Cyprus

invited book chapter in March L. and Keith L. (eds), The radical Left and the crisis

Abstract:

The Left and the crisis in Cyprus is a particularly interesting topic to investigate because the Left happened to head the government at the time when the crisis unfolded and because the crisis in Cyprus developed with intense rapidity and severity. This chapter discusses the relationship of the Cypriot Left and the economic crisis in three inter-linked dimensions: a) the response of the AKEL to the crisis in terms of discourse and action while holding state executive power, b) the stance of the AKEL while being in opposition and c) the impact of the crisis on the Left's support base, including AKELian intellectual production. Whereas the first two dimensions correspond to two temporally different modalities and are externally oriented in the sense of examining policies and rhetoric, the third one assumes a unified moment and an inward perspective attempting to tap on the actual impact of the crisis in socio-economic, organisational and ideological terms on the Left's rank and file members and voters alike.  

Gregoris Ioannou and Giorgos Charalambous

Employment in crisis: Cyprus 2010-2013

This article discusses the conditions that prevail in the Cyprus labour market after the onset of the economic crisis. The analysis takes the form of a chronological narrative on the development of the crisis, its impact on employment relations and the attempts of the political elite to manage it through austerity measures. The article argues that the recession and the rising unemployment accelerated and exacerbated already existing tendencies of labour market deregulation and trade union marginalisation while in the context of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika and its aftermath, historical work rights and benefits as well as living standards were eroded, extending the condition of “precarity” to broader sections of the Cyprus labour force. It is primarily a descriptive account which reports the recent developments in an attempt to map out the changes in the field of employment, situate them in their historical context and preliminarily assess their significance.