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This article explores what happens when the term "austerity" becomes a global catchword. Specifically, we study how this term has been used in national policy making in the Portuguese and Spanish parliaments from the 1970s until recently. We show that although Portugal and Spain were in a somewhat different situation regarding the 2008 economic crisis, the increased popularity of the term austerity occurred practically simultaneously in the Portuguese and Spanish parliaments. This suggests that the term's popularity in political debates is not solely determined by a nation's political or fiscal situation. Rather, our contention is that employing the term austerity to discuss government policies became a global fashion after the fiscal crisis of 2008. The study also shows why austerity became an increasingly popular concept: the term changed from being mainly used in fiscal policy to being commonly used in other policy areas too. Related Articles: Exadaktylos, Theofanis, and Nikolaos Zahariadis. 2014. "Quid pro Quo: Political Trust and Policy Implementation in Greece during the Age of Austerity." Politics & Policy 42 (1): 160‐183. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12058 Monza, Sabina, and Eva Anduiza. 2016. "The Visibility of the EU in the National Public Spheres in Times of Crisis and Austerity." Politics & Policy 44 (3): 499‐524. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12163 Sager, Fritz, and Markus Hinterleitner. 2016. "How do Credit Rating Agencies Rate? An Implementation Perspective on the Assessment of Austerity Programs during the European Debt Crisis." Politics & Policy 44 (4): 783‐815. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12165 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces various strands of neoinstitutionalism, with the focus on sociological institutionalism, particularly ‘Stanford School’ sociological institutionalism and discursive institutionalism. The article points out that in opposing individualist rational choice theory, sociological institutionalism takes a strong structuralist stance in which actors are depicted as agents constituted by the scripts of rationalist world culture, mindlessly enacting worldwide models. In contrast, discursive institutionalist scholarship focuses on research about the actual practices through which global ideas are incorporated in local contexts, as well as on the discourses that motivate actors in the modern world to behave so uniformly in several ways, even though the culture of modernity specifically celebrates individualism and sovereignty and denounces mindless compliance. These studies have highlighted the key role of local actors in the local-global interaction. Yet these orientations must not be seen as separate schools of thought, but rather as developments within neoinstitutionalist sociology. In other words, recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the forms of local-global interaction. Case analyses have shown that synchronization of national policies seems to be a side effect of local actors utilizing broadly shared ideas and values in justifying their political objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While media studies have focused on journalist roles in framing foreign news events for local readers to render them suitable for national audiences, there has been less attention to similar roles played by other social actors in bringing ‘home’ new models about existing realities. Therefore, this paper addresses the question of how a global catchphrase, ‘war on terror,’ acquired a national paradigm status by virtue of its use by multiple actors in the media sphere in Pakistan. We analyse all the articles mentioning the catchphrase in a leading national English daily over two years to unpack how the war on terror turned from being ‘their’ war in America to becoming ‘our’ war in Pakistan. Drawing on media studies of localization, we discuss the rhetorical modes by which the term was embedded in the Pakistani political field to give it a distinct national flavour. We refer to this process as ‘domestication’, by which the catchphrase was adopted in Pakistan by local, interested actors including media professionals. We draw particular attention to the way in which this complex process naturalizes the term by nationalizing it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the question of how cosmopolitan consciousness coexists with persistent banal nationalism or localism. The argument put forward is that these two phenomena are reinvigorated by a single process, here called the domestication of transnational models. The newspaper media coverage of an R&D project aimed at developing local government cultural activities in Finnish towns and cities is the object of a case analysis. The results show that although the project contributed to standardizing local government cultural activities and spreading the idea of cities as strategic actors, through the way in which the project was covered in the local media, it strengthened a local viewpoint on the whole process. It drew on and constituted residents’ identification with their local domicile and the idea that local government citizens are members of a team that has to do well in global competition. Second, the comparative data made available was capitalized in local politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how the implementation of early childhood education plans in Finland is linked with international trends and what happens in the process through which such worldwide ideals are domesticated to the local conditions. Through a detailed analysis of different stages of the process, the article sheds light on the question of how, to what extent and at which levels the national path of change is converged with those in other countries. The results show that the early childhood education system has not fully met its declared objectives. However, it is emphasized that declared objectives of a reform must not be confused with the ‘original’, perhaps worldwide model, which is then contrasted with actual practices. Similarly, the actual form that the new practices assume must not be mistaken for the effect of a genuinely national tradition. Rather, the ideals and objectives stated in the documents related to the reform in question must be seen as part of the political process and of a global form of governance that the reformed policy represents. Not only the model being domesticated but the rationalities, counterarguments and forms of resistance which different parties invoke to defend their interests are often transnational. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]