Current Euro Crisis Research Articles

Authoritarian liberalism between market capitalism and democracy: critical and neoliberal perspectives

Being related to the concept of democracy, liberalism is nevertheless not identical with it; moreover, in its contemporary form, liberalism is rather opposed to democracy. It is unlikely that anyone would argue that neoliberalism and Reaganomics introduced by M. Thatcher and R. Reagan contained a democratic rather than authoritarian message, while the essence of Thatcherism was characterized by many analysts as authoritarian populism. The synthesis of authoritarianism and liberalism seems irrelevant due to the historical dominance of the discourse of political rather than economic liberalism. Throughout the twentieth century, liberalism developed as the main antithesis to authoritarianism and totalitarianism and therefore accentuated its fundamental disagreement with any form of collectivist ideology and communitarianism. During the acute ideological battles of the Cold War, liberalism was associated with democracy and opposed to authoritarian socialism. Influenced by the ideas of J. Rawls and J. Habermas, political liberalism was thought of as a synonym for democracy even from egalitarian and progressive positions in the context of actually existing liberal democracy. Speaking about the long-term relationship between economic liberalism and democracy and analyzing growing overregulation of political processes in the current eurocrisis, it is necessary to recall the concept of authoritarian liberalism, first proposed by H. Heller in 1932. Heller’s concept of authoritarian liberalism emphasizes the connection between authoritarianism of “the strong state” (C. Schmitt) and economic liberalism of market rationality. The paper substantiates that in critical and transformational periods the actualization of authoritarian liberalism corresponds to the fundamental tension between market capitalism and representative democracy.

The European Neoliberal Order and the Eurocrisis: Blame it all on Germany?

This article reads the current Eurocrisis going far beyond the classical linear explanations of the dualism between an imperialist core and a victimised periphery. Instead, it mobilises the concepts of social capital and of global imperialist chain to demonstrate the continuum between the agendas of the dominant classes in both the core and the periphery and the use of intergovernmental regional organisations as privileged tools for their strategies of exposing national capitals to international competition. Seen from this point of view, the current Eurocrisis is something far more complex than a mere exercise of domination of a major power (Germany, in this case) over peripheral economies: it is part of a strategy of redesigning the traditional model of welfare state, in which the Euro and the European Monetary Union work as dispositives of an hegemonic approach useful for the national bourgeoisies of the entire European space.

Europe’s future - the relevance of Keynes’s economic consequences of the peace

The purpose of this paper is to use the analysis and recommendations of The Economic Consequences of the Peace in order to illustrate how Keynes?s approach could be used for an inquiry into the nature of the current euro crisis. The euro crisis should not be separated from the crisis of the European Union itself, since it is almost impossible to assume that the effects of the demise of the euro area would not a be a direct cause of the unraveling of the European Union, the most vast, complex, and tenacious effort of economic and political integration in modern history. Certainly, the conclusions and remedies proposed by Keynes should not be overlooked and it is possible to draw some broad conclusions on how his approach would affect the considerations regarding possible remedies for the current crisis.

The Failure of European Governance of the Crisis

The current euro crisis, considered by the IMF to be the new heart of the international economic crisis, has its historical roots in the process of construction of the European Monetary Union (EMU). The resulting architecture of economic governance in the EU has revealed itself to contain serious shortcomings in both ideological terms (design of a coherent exit strategy) and institutional terms (procedures, irreversibility and implementation times of the decisions made). As a result, the responses made by Europe have been late, hesitant, sometimes lacking in intensity and inconsistent in their attempts to manage the crisis.

Varieties of capitalism or varieties of relationships of forces? Outlines of a historical materialist policy analysis

Our article focuses on a question that is at the core of comparative capitalisms (CC) scholarship and historical materialist state theory: What is an appropriate theory of institutions in capitalism? How can we conceptualise institutions in relation to the fundamental contradictions and power relations of capitalism? Starting from the social foundations of institutions, the aim of this article is to show how institutional complementarity and institutional change can be explained through analysing shifting relationships of social forces. With our newly developed method of a ‘historical materialist policy analysis’, in which we have integrated insights of CC approaches, we seek to show how an empirical investigation of relationships of forces can be operationalised. This is briefly illustrated in an analysis of the constellation of forces in the current Euro crisis.

The Janus faces of European policy

The current Eurocrisis has demonstrated the ambiguity of ‘European social policy’, where, as the Greek case shows, the only place in European Union law where some form of ‘solidarity’ is supposed to exist, i.e. ‘social policy’, has no direct concern with it. The absence of solidarity at a time when it is most needed can be explained by persisting national diversity, and the incapacity of the system to generate political consensus, leading to the greatest outbreak of nationalistic political activity since the Second World War.

Explaining Political Leadership: Germany's Role in Shaping the Fiscal Compact

This paper explores the origins and the impact of political leadership: Why and how do political leaders emerge? And, once in charge, how do these leaders influence outcomes? What determines their success or failure? In order to answer these questions, the paper presents a theory of political leadership which takes into account both the structural and the behavioral aspects of the concept. More precisely, it argues that the emergence and the impact of leadership represent two different analytical steps. A leader emerges if there is a supply of and demand for leadership. While the supply depends on a leader’s expected benefits, the demand is determined by the followers’ status quo costs. Both demand and supply are also influenced by the relevant institutions’ capacity to manage situational challenges. The second step, in contrast, concerns a leader’s impact. Since leadership as a process consists in the use of strategies, there can be an impact only if the intensity of the strategies employed by the leader is greater than the intensity of the strategies required by the situational circumstances. While a leader’s capacity to employ strategies is determined by the material, institutional and ‘soft’ power resources at disposal, the intensity of strategies actually needed to influence outcomes depends on the heterogeneity of preferences and on the adaptability of the institutional setting to be changed. The theory is applied within the scope of the current Euro-crisis by conducting a qualitative analysis of Germany’s role in shaping the European Fiscal Compact. Although the empirical findings corroborate the theory, the case study reveals that further comparative research on political leadership is needed.

A Critique of the Rhetoric of Common Interest in the EU Legal Discourse

The current Euro crisis simply brought to the fore a larger and hitherto invisible structural problem as to the relationship between the European Unions center and its periphery. I am arguing that the interests and concerns of the peripheral EU countries are difficult to express in the existing legal discourse and that this crucially influences their position in the EU.The existing legal thinking in EU legal scholarship reproduces the existing hierarchies in the European Union and specifically, between the hierarchy between the EUs center and periphery. Countries of the center are for example Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Countries of the periphery are, for example, Hungary, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia and Estonia.The thinking of the EU legal profession is one of the center of the EU and this crucially determines how harm is conceptualized in EU law. The position of the EUs periphery is not reflected in the existing EU legal discourse. First, the way the EU is structured and the way issues are framed for discussion makes it difficult to notice and address distributional consequences of the EU legal structure between the center and the periphery. Second, many of the periphery's aspirations and claims for protection against harm are foreclosed from operating powerfully in the Union.I argue that there is no doctrine of the periphery and challenge existing thinking in antitrust law, state aid law and free movement law. I am challenging the dichotomy of social and autonomy claims in Contemporary legal thought and argue that this kind of thinking and critiques based on such thinking are not only theoretically unwarranted, but often work to the detriment of the periphery. I argue that the prohibition of social dumping and the lack of prohibition of goods dumping in EU law harms periphery's industry.The legal system is better understood as a set of freedoms and prohibitions rather than a dichotomy between social and economic considerations. From this angle, the picture of the EU is quite different: the EU's center has more freedoms and less prohibitions and the periphery has more prohibitions and less freedoms. I argue that these entitlements should be rearranged if all the rhetoric of inclusion of the other and tolerance is to have any real substance.I further critique the constitutional and pluralist discourse in the Union. I argue that the focus of the legal profession on adequate representation and participation is analytically insufficient and I further critique the constitutionalist/pluralist discourse for inadequate conceptualization of power and general assumption of common interest in the Union. The existing theorizing of the EU only explains, rationalizes and legitimates the status quo.

Story and Fundamentals of Direct Taxation at Work in the EU

Going back to the European Union (EU) fundamentals is an interesting and useful exercise. That is the case of the contribution of early history to EU foundations, objectives, and legal principles and values. It is also the case of its constutional paradigm and fiscal trends in the evolving tax case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the less successful positive tax integration by the Council and Commission. The experience with past and present thus brings us to the question of the evolution of future taxation in the EU and its internal market. Quo vadis Europe in fiscalibus after the current Euro crisis? Will the political Union still be the same Union with the fiscal policies applied under the rule of strengthened coordination and surveillance under Article 136 TFEU, the legislative Six-pack pact, and the decisions and procedures of the Commission thereunder? This is a controversial issue that leaves us on tenterhooks wondering how it will all end.

Why Germany Wanted EMU: The Role of Helmut Kohl's Belief System and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

In light of the current Euro-crisis and seemingly erratic German response to it, the question of why Germany wanted EMU has gained new relevance. While EMU entailed economic and political benefits for Germany, this article indicates that taking into account the German shared historical consciousness, and the combined effect of Chancellor Kohl's beliefs and 1989 Eastern European revolution provides a more adequate answer to this question. More specifically, such an explanation provides an answer to remaining questions concerning the timing of the German acquiescence, and the ambiguous and inconsistent behaviour of the Kohl government on the road to Maastricht.

Changing the Rules of the Game - An Analysis of EU Influence on Electricity and Gas Liberalization, with a Focus on the Baltic Sea Region, and Future Challenges to EU Energy Market Regulation

This study analyses the expansion of the EU into energy market regulation. It shows that the limits to EU influence and, thereby, EU energy market regulation for the internal energy market, begin where EU influence affects national interests with regard to ensuring energy security. This scientifically established insight bears an important practical implication. The further development of EU energy market regulation as a cornerstone of the internal energy market faces a particular policy challenge: It is necessary to establish a regulatory framework for the internal electricity and gas market, which acknowledges the primacy of national energy security interests. This finding is important in the light of the new and increasing energy policy challenges that some Member States face today, not least as a result of a liberalized energy market. Moreover, in the context of new systemic risks arising from ongoing energy market integration, a politically unstable (in the worst case - collapsing) EU regulatory framework can cause significant social and economic costs for individual Member States. With regard to that, the study points to the increasingly complex policy areas that are made subject to EU integration and calls for more attention to the related regulatory and political risks - also with a view to the current euro crisis.

No ode to joy? Reflections on the European Union's legitimacy

This article analyses the European Union's (EU) lack of legitimacy for European citizens. It examines the expanding credibility gap of the EU since the Treaty of Lisbon Irish referendums in 2008 and 2009. Although there are various reasons for the EU's lack of legitimacy, this article proposes the failure of the EU to penetrate the domestic public or social spheres and the dearth of opportunities for citizen participation in EU governance as primary factors. The article then considers risks associated with the current euro crisis, drawing lessons from the largely ignored sociological and political factors that impact on its resolution.

The Euro Crisis: Euro as a Victim of the Decade Long Ignorance of the Maastricht Treaty Criteria by the EU Institutions and Euro Zone Member States

The paper deals with the current Euro crisis and is trying to find out the reasons for this very unsuccessful development in the whole history of its preparation and then also acceptance of the first 12 members of the Euro zone and its further development mainly characterized by the evident disrespect for the obligatory Maastricht Treaty Euro convergence criteria not only by the Eurozone member states but what is even more negative by the EU institutions namely by the European Commission as the main gaurantor of the Treaties.