Ideology (not economics) explains why the Troika treated Ireland less harshly than Greece

Both Greece and Ireland suffered substantially during the Eurozone crisis, but as Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes and Ana Lara Gómez write, the two countries’ treatment by the ‘Troika’ of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission was strikingly different. Drawing on new research, they explain that much of this stemmed from ideological reasons rather than economics: a far greater degree of ideological proximity existed between Ireland and the Troika than was the case in Greece.