Recent literature on the eurozone crisis has begun to rethink those explanations of its origins that rely on narratives stressing the ‘immaturity’ of the peripheral European states.1 These narratives, found in political, media and scholarly discourses, represent states like Ireland, Portugal and particularly Greece as to varying degrees profligate, corrupt and generally lacking the mature, efficacious and responsible political culture necessary for prudent fiscal governance. This ‘lack of maturity’, unless corrected, is argued to be an insurmountable obstacle to a return to growth for these states. The works of Carlo Bastasin, Heikki Patomäki, and Kostas A. Lavdas, Spyridon N. Litsas and Dimitrios V. Skiadas reviewed in this article all recognise the limits of this kind of explanation, and attempt to move the debate on the eurozone crisis beyond it. In this sense they are representative of an emerging literature that is rethinking the origins of the eurozone crisis. However, as will be shown, the project may also need to rethink the asymmetry of the crisis in order to be fully realised.
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