The New Intergovernmentalism and the Euro Crisis: A Painful Case? LEQS Paper No. 145/2019 June 2019

The new intergovernmentalism seeks to understand the changing dynamics of contemporary European integration. It emphasises, inter alia, member states’ preference for deliberative modes of decision-making and their reluctance to delegate new powers to traditional supranational institutions. The euro crisis is sometimes seen as a difficult case for the new intergovernmentalism because of the perceived importance of hard bargaining over crisis measures during this episode and the new roles entrusted to the European Commission and the European Central Bank under crisis reforms. Such criticisms, this paper argues, overlook: the importance of high-level consensus-seeking and deliberation in saving the single currency; the disparate forms of delegation deployed to preserve member state influence over Economic and Monetary Union; and the extent to which the euro crisis has amplified the European Union’s political disequilibrium. Far from running counter to the new intergovernmentalism, it concludes, the euro crisis exemplifies the turbulent dynamics of the post-Maastricht period

The Paradox of EMU's External Representation: The Case of the G20 and the IMF

This paper revisits claims about the euro area‟s fragmented system of external relations in multilateral settings in the light of the global financial crisis. Focusing on the involvement of the EU and euro area in the G20 and the IMF Executive Board, it offers a case study of European influence during the most turbulent period for the international economic system since the Great Depression. Its central finding is that the euro area has been an influential international actor in these fora in spite, and in some cases because, of its fragmented system of external representation

The Exchange Rate as an Adjustment Mechanism - A Structural VAR Approach to the Case of Ireland

Ireland’s participation in stage three of Economic and Monetary Union precludes exchange rate adjustment in response to asymmetric shocks. A Structural VAR model is used to decompose the effects of asymmetric supply, demand and nominal disturbances on macroeconomic imbalances between Ireland and the UK and on the Irish pound-sterling exchange rate. The results indicate that supply shocks account for a significant degree of the fluctuation in both variables. This lends weight to the view that the loss of autonomous control over the nominal exchange rate in the face of asymmetric shocks is a significant one, thus increasing the importance of alternative adjustment mechanisms for the Irish economy.

The IMF as a de facto institution of the EU: a multiple supervisor approach

This paper seeks to understand and explain the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) evolving relationship with the European Union (EU) before and after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Prior to this crisis, the two sides operated on parallel tracks with little scope for mutual adjustment even during the economic turmoil of the 1970s. After the global financial crisis, the IMF emerged as a de facto institution of the EU thanks to European leaders’ delegation of supervisory powers to both the Fund and the European Commission. The reasons for, and consequences of, this dual delegation are explored here by means of amultiple supervisor variation on the classic principal-agent-supervisor approach

The little engine that wouldn’t: supranational entrepreneurship and the Barroso Commission

This paper seeks to evaluate and explain the degree of supranational entrepreneurship shown by the European Commission following the global financial crisis. Focusing on the period 2007–2011, it finds that the Commission used its right of initiative and/or mobilised ideas and information to pursue a supranational European Union (EU) economic policy in few cases. These findings are explained with reference to strategic entrepreneurship, that is the Commission’s reluctance to support integrationist initiatives unless they stand a chance of success, and by the fact that partisanship took precedence for the EU executive over the pursuit of integration in some cases. The Commission could yet capitalise on the crisis but its actions in this period call for greater attention by scholars to preference formation by supranational actors as well as a reconsideration of what it means for the EU executive to lead

Enrollment and Disenrollment in Voluntary Prekindergarten: A Study of Educational Leaders’ Decision-Making

This qualitative case study focused on how school leaders’ understandings of (dis)ability were implicated in decision-making and affected student (dis)enrollment in Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Program (VPK). More specifically it explored how leaders in private VPK programs invoked conceptions of normality, and subsequently abnormality, during decision-making processes for student (dis)enrollment. Combining a critical poststructuralist approach (critical disability studies, critical policy analysis), decision-making on (dis)enrollment was contextualized within the current policy ecology. This policy ecology was framed as an historical development of policies regarding preschool for children with and without disabilities in a marketplace shaped by the convergence of federal, state, and local policy, which tended to be based on deficit-oriented perspectives of disability that functioned to (re)constructed what was understood as (dis)ability. Further, findings focused on how policy, market, and VPK leaders’ understanding of (dis)ability influenced decision-making rationales and outcomes affecting (dis)enrolled students. Findings indicated their sense of identity impacted their interpretation of and reaction to program polices, local market pressures and their construction of the “good consumer”—a parent/child dyad prepared for rigor and the exhibition of self-control. Reciprocity emerged as a theme and suggested good consumers reinforced VPK leaders’ desired identity. In addition, VPK leaders’ justified enrollment and disenrollment decisions within a continuum of exchanges that occurred between consumers and themselves. Leaders who embraced service or spiritual based leadership practices tended to be more inclusive of children with diverse needs. Implications for future research should address 1) how VPK leaders include children with a range of abilities in their (pre)schools, 2) examine parents’ decision-making practices about their child’s (dis)enrollment in VPK centers, 3) policy clarification at the intersection of IDEA, ADA, and VPK, and 4) explore how local education agencies and private preschools can build infrastructure to support the inclusion of children with diverse learning needs in VPK centers. Such research can shed light on the complexity of decision-making with respect to enrollment for publicly-funded voucher programs on the private VPK market and how those decisions function to (re)shape discourses of normality in early childhood

Jacques Delors: vision, revisionism, and the design of EMU

This chapter explores Jacques Delors’ blurred vision of Economic and Monetary Union. It shows how the former central banker, French finance minister, member of the European Parliament, and Commission president was committed to—but vague about—the project of Economic and Monetary Union. It relates this understanding to Delors’ economic and political education, the individuals that exerted the greatest intellectual influence on him, his place within the French political and policy-making tradition, and the institutional context in which his views evolved. Delors’ legacy for EMU—and his evolving views on this project in view of the euro crisis—are also explored

The politics of documentary photography: three theoretical perspectives

Photographers are often inspired by politics but can they influence it? Drawing on the study of public policy and the history of photography, this article considers three ways in which documentary photographers enter the policy process. It considers the photographer as: a bureaucrat working within government networks to achieve individual and institutional aims; an advocate working with like-minded actors to advance shared political beliefs; an expert working within an epistemic community driven by a shared policy enterprise. These roles highlight the institutional channels through which photographers seek and sometimes secure political change and the contradictions and constraints they face in so doing. These contrasting perspectives are discussed with reference to the work of canonical and contemporary photographers engaged in national and international politics from 1890 to today