Managing problem debt in Europe

Abstract This introduction to the theme section proposes the concept of problem debt, understood as household debt deviating from actors’ and institutionalized norms about its course, and presents a relational and historical realist approach focused on the practices of marking and managing problem debt. We discuss key emic perspectives on problem debt, agencies directly involved in its management (debt apparatuses), and the interaction of varied understandings, interests and normative frameworks in complex social fields of problem debt management in which states play the leading, but neither monopolistic nor monolithic, role. Finally, we present key findings of the theme section's five case studies of problem debt management in sites of advanced and peripheral household financialization in Northwest European cores and Eastern European semi-peripheries, respectively, and the contrasting patterns that emerge from comparisons among them.