Managing austerity: rhetorical and real responses to fiscal stress in local government

Abstract

Coping with fiscal stress is a major challenge. Four responses can be identified for managing austerity: decline, cutbacks, retrenchment, and downsizing. Responses are primarily fiscally oriented, or organizational; they focus predominantly on stability, or change. Explorative research indicates the ambition to manage austerity through organizational change. Rhetorically, municipalities are innovative. In reality, however, municipalities predominantly deploy fiscal measures that tend towards stability, although there is substantial variation. To restore this gap, current austerity practices have to be reconsidered.