Abstract
This thesis examines the way in which structural adjustment programmes had been implemented in two bailout countries: Greece and Ireland. It asks why was there a divergence in implementing troika programmes in the Greek and Irish cases? By comparing different domestic settings and reform environments those countries have had, it aims to explain divergent reform delivery processes during the crisis and austerity. Drawing upon policy processes theories, this study attempts to shed light into the Greek and Irish experiences of reform. It aims to provide an integrated theoretical approach combining Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). This dissertation follows a qualitative comparative case-study design, with an in-depth analysis of semi-structured elite interviews and complementary content analysis of the interest groups. The expectation was that divergent policy subsystems in Greece and Ireland had existed and had shaped their reform delivery processes differently in the two countries. This thesis argues that there had been different dominant belief systems in the two countries that policy coalitions had embraced. Whereas Greek policy narratives had been developed in anti-reform tones, Irish policy narratives had been more in line with the pro-reform perspective. In Greece, subsystem coalitions included actors with more rigid policy positions compare to Irish actors whereas in Ireland policy positions were more flexible and pragmatic. Policy actors have had different level of actorness and strengths within the coalitions in terms of pressuring for their policy choices. These help to illustrate divergent domestic settings in the two countries which were subjected to same conditionality from the troika institutions.