New Institutional Dynamics in the European Union

This is the first book to provide a full and dispassionate account of the politics and economics of the Eurozone crisis. The focus is on the interlinked origins and impacts of the crisis and the policy responses to it. The book is distinguished from existing research by its avoidance (and rejection) of the simplistic analysis that has characterized political, media, and, regrettably, some academic coverage, and by its attempt to escape from the tyranny of small events and short-term developments. Each of the authors identifies an important question and undertakes a careful empirical, theoretically informed analysis that produces novel perspectives. Together the contributors seek to balance many of the existing accounts that have rushed to sometimes unwarranted conclusions, concerning, for example, the locus of institutional power in European crisis management; the power and centrality of particular member states, notably Germany, which has been attributed with “hegemonic” status; the supposed entrapment of EU policymakers by an “austerity ideology”; and the deep flaws that apparently afflict the solutions to the crisis put painstakingly in place, such as banking union. While it will be some time before the EU can put the crisis behind it, and the dust finally settles on the revised institutional system that emerges, The Political and Economic Dynamics of the Eurozone Crisis marks an important step towards a considered, reflective analysis of the tumultuous events and developments of the crisis period.