Anti-austerity protests

The anti-austerity movement refers to the mobilisation of street protests and grassroots campaigns that has happened across various countries, especially in Europe, since the onset of the worldwide Great Recession.

Anti-austerity actions are varied and ongoing, and can be either sporadic and loosely organised or longer-term and tightly organised. They continue as of the present day. The global Occupy movement has arguably been the most noticeable physical enactment of anti-austerity and populist sentiment.

An example of countries implementing severe austerity measures is Ireland. Ireland witnessed its housing market completely (rather than, as elsewhere, partially) collapse, and the government eventually had to apply for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), agreeing to an austerity program of economic reform in exchange. The austerity measures and the terms of the IMF bailout became major aspects of the Irish financial crisis, and populist anger over these issues played a major role in the loss of governmental power of Fianna Fáil to opposition parties in the 2011 Irish general election. The loss for Fianna Fáil was so great that many commentators remarked that the results were "historic". Fine Gael and the Labour Party formed a coalition government, and Fine Gael promised to re-negotiate the terms of the IMF bailout end the austerity programme.Sinn Féin, which for the first time won a notable percentage in the election, called for a nationwide referendum over whether the bailout agreement should be scrapped altogether. Labour dismissed this idea. Members of smaller parties, such as the Socialists, People Before Profit Alliance, the WUAG and Independents involved themselves in the Campaign Against Home and Water Taxes.

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