Description
The phrase ‘sick man of…’ is a prominent framing deployed by Anglo-American media, to portray underperforming countries within a specific region. However, the logic and effects of these framings in political economies remain understudied, despite how they can affect a country’s economic credibility and reputation. In this article, we explore how this and similar framings are deployed by diverse media actors, politicians, and policymakers, as a key part in the (contested) construction of national economic status. We begin with an original, in-depth media and discourse analysis of how key Anglo-American business newspapers use comparative framings to cover countries in Europe and LATAM, disseminating a set of conditions and related metrics that characterise countries' credibility within global financial markets. Afterwards, we analyse how these media framings are deployed within countries in these regions by media and political actors, to contest or support ideas of national economic status. Overall, we argue that the singling out of countries under media coverage of this sort serves a disciplinary logic of comparative economic assessment, which can be used by both reformist or status quo actors. In this way, we identify the mechanisms through which states’ economic credibility is performed, (re)produced and contested.
