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The European Central Bank is one of the most independent central banks in the world, but this independence is also highly constrained: the Maastricht Treaty established a primary mandate to pursue price stability and prohibited it from engaging in monetary financing. Using an historical institutional framework, this article analyses the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy during the euro crisis. The Maastricht Treaty’s constraints forced the ECB to act incrementally during the crisis and rely primarily on the layering of institutional changes. Nevertheless, the self-reinforcing effect identified by historical institutionalism meant that these gradual changes had important consequences over time. The unconventional monetary policies are contrasted with the more drastic institutional change instigated by the Member States, the ECB’s designation as the Single Supervisory Mechanism. The self-reinforcing effects and path dependence set by the ECB’s high degree of independence in the Maastricht Treaty, however, also constrained the EU in ensuring the accountability of the ECB, as the accountability structure is another instance of layering despite the very different nature and consequences of financial policy supervision.

Previous research has identified the frames and metaphors used in the reporting on the Euro crisis. War and disease turned out to be the two most frequently used metaphorical frames. Since coverage of the current financial crisis may have a tangible effect on public opinion, research into the effects of metaphorical frames on attitudes is needed. By employing two survey experiments, a student sample (N = 259) and a nonstudent sample (N = 507), this article traces the effects of both metaphorical frames. Our results show that individuals take over the metaphorical frame elements in their evaluation of the Euro crisis. Participants in the war conditions significantly more often referred to war when answering the open questions. Alternatively, when the Euro crisis was framed as a disease, participants were more likely to use words and sentences containing disease frame elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretations of the nature of integration since the outbreak of the euro crisis differ greatly. Either observers see a full restoration of national control or they find a substantial upgrade of supranational autonomy. In light of these contradicting perspectives, this article searches for general patterns of crisis-driven integration. To this end, it analyses the key institutions of the reformed European economic governance. The findings show that control over risk-reducing and market-making institutions have been delegated to supranational institutions whereas control over all risk-sharing and market-correcting institutions has remained in the hands of the member states. This pattern of pooling and delegation of competences reflects the superior bargaining power of creditor states during the crisis. As a consequence, crisis-driven integration has deepened the structural asymmetry between market-making and market-correcting of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Euro crisis has revealed severe conflicts between EU member states and challenged a shared European identity. This article investigates how the crisis was reflected in identity constructions in media discourses in EU key countries. European identity construction is conceptualized as framing of the EU in favour or against belonging to the EU and togetherness with other members. Conducting a systematic content analysis of two weekly newspapers and magazines in Germany, France and the UK, we compare identity constructions between 2011 and 2014. Findings show that while support of belonging to the EU is low in general, the countries differ remarkably in terms of their sense of togetherness. This particularly applies to strong or weak political integration, market regulation or market freedom and financial stability or impulses for economic growth. The positions reflect long-term political conflicts between the countries but are also flexible enough to adapt to the particular event context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although European integration has become an increasingly salient and controversial topic in domestic politics, the consequences of this politicisation of the European Union for the integration process have not received adequate scholarly attention. To fill this lacuna, this article devises five hypotheses on the effects of politicisation for the integration process, which are subsequently tested against the evidence of the Euro and Schengen crises. Both crises had comparable origins, but the Euro crisis caused substantial deepening of integration, while the Schengen crisis has not engendered any meaningful reforming steps. The empirical analysis finds that politicisation assumed different forms across the two crises, which is shown to be one causal factor that explains the variation in crises outcomes. The article thereby contributes to a multifaceted understanding of the politicisation of international institutions, EU integration theory and the dynamics of the Euro and Refugee crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Fiscal Compact had seemed to be one of the lessons learned from the Euro crisis. It was supposed to ensure that member states follow more ambitious fiscal targets. First results however show that fiscal indicators have not substantially improved. Public debt is higher than at the beginning of the crisis and consolidation efforts were limited. The outook for European public debt and the stability of the Eurozone is thereby not promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present results from a survey of 785 prospective social science teachers who were asked about their attitudes on the euro crisis during their first year at university in Germany. The students strongly believe that the crisis is mainly due to excessive public debt and lack of competitiveness in the crisis countries but do not consider Germany's persistent trade surplus as a major problem. A regression analysis suggests that students' views about Germany's trade surplus are unrelated to their political orientation, their general support for the European idea or their perceptions of its efficiency and fairness. The implications for European integration and citizenship education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper1 scrutinizes the transformation of the European economic governance. This is a framework conceived by European Union decision-makers to establish institutions and processes - coordination and harmonisation of economic policies - in order to achieve economic and social development for the European Union and its citizens. Prior to the global financial crisis, the European economic governance was incomplete, poorly coordinated and in certain macroeconomic areas insufficient. The international financial crisis and the "Euro crisis" compelled a much deeper and more comprehensive governance structure from the decision-makers of the European Union. Despite the rapid emergence of Community-level crisis management mechanisms, ad hoc responses and processes prevailed till the turning point of the "Euro crisis" in 2012. Since then, the transformation the European economic governance continued in a heavily institutionalized and coordinated form, providing a long-term vision for the European Union and the Eurozone. European economic governance has been substantially expanded, institutional arrangements cover fiscal policy, monetary policy, the supervision of the financial system, policies related to structural and competitiveness issues. Moreover, comprehensive and coordinated reform strategies were launched, based on the European Commission's priorities. In this paper, we carry out a simple analysis to detect whether the new European economic governance has corrected the precrisis country-specific risks and institutional flaws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is the transcript of a debate, entitled 'Pensare un'alternativa' (Thinking of an Alternative), between Olivier Blanchard, former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund and a leading exponent of mainstream macroeconomics, and Emiliano Brancaccio, author of the book Anti-Blanchard and advocate of 'The Economists' Warning' against European deflationary policies. The debate examines, from two different theoretical perspectives, the global great recession, the Eurozone crisis, the effects of austerity and deflation, increased social inequality, and political conflict. It took place at the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan, Italy, on 19 December 2018, and was moderated by the journalist Pietro Raitano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Central Bank (ECB) is one of the most independent central banks in the world, but this independence is also highly constrained: the Maastricht Treaty established a primary mandate to pursue price stability and prohibited it from engaging in monetary financing. Using an historical institutional framework, this article analyses the ECB's unconventional monetary policy during the Euro crisis. The Maastricht Treaty's constraints forced the ECB to act incrementally during the crisis and rely primarily on the layering of institutional changes. Nevertheless, the self-reinforcing effect identified by historical institutionalism meant that these gradual changes had important consequences over time. The unconventional monetary policies are contrasted with the more drastic institutional change instigated by the Member States, the ECB's designation as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). The self-reinforcing effects and path dependence set by the ECB's high degree of independence in the Maastricht Treaty, however, also constrained the EU in ensuring the accountability of the ECB, as the accountability structure is another instance of layering despite the very different nature and consequences of financial policy supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We investigate how European policy initiatives influenced market assessments of sovereign default risk and banking sector fragility during the sovereign debt crisis in four adversely affected countries — Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy. We focus on three broad groups of policies: (a) ECB policy actions (monetary and financial support), (b) EU programs (financial and fiscal rules as well as financial support in crisis countries), and (c) domestic austerity programs. We measure immediate market impact effects: what policies changed risk perceptions, using CDS spreads on sovereign bonds and banks in this assessment. We employ dynamic panel and event study methodologies in the empirical work. We find that a number of programs initially stabilized sovereign and bank bond markets (e.g. Outright Monetary Transactions program), although announcement and implementation impacts on markets differed in some cases (e.g. second Covered Market Bond Program). Actions designed to shore up sovereign markets often lowered risk assessments in bank bond markets and policies designed to ensure safety and soundness of the European banking system in some cases significantly impacted sovereign debt markets. Finally, a number of policies designed to stabilize markets had surprisingly little immediate impact on either sovereign or bank bond market risk assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is little doubt that the European Central Bank (ECB), and in particular its presidency, has taken the lead in tackling the euro crisis. But can this leadership be also characterised as charismatic? This article answers the question by focusing on language – a key component as well as a reliable indicator of charisma. By means of a software‐assisted content analysis of the entire corpus of ECB presidential speeches, it is found that the crisis has indeed led to the emergence of the Bank's presidency as a charismatic euro leader. This in turn confirms the recent politicisation of the ECB, but at the same time might be seen as mitigating the problems related to the Bank's democratic deficit, to the extent that charisma can be seen, from a Weberian standpoint, as an alternative source of political legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) response to the euro crisis brought new relevance to the debate on socialization through European institutions. While previous studies differ in their support for EU socialization, many have argued that the euro crisis revealed a far-reaching convergence of views among Europe's leaders. Theoretically, the European Central Bank (ECB) in particular is expected to have the power to socialize its governors into a common worldview. The present article questions this proposition. Using the technique of cognitive mapping to provide an in-depth analysis of the views of five members of the ECB Governing Board, we find that even for ECB governors national culture generally trumps EU socialization. Only for ECB President Trichet significant evidence of EU socialization is found. The study also points to some new scope-conditions for socialization that may further our understanding of how European institutions may foster the sustainable socialization of views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this contribution is to account for the different political reform trajectories resulting from two of the most recent governance challenges faced by the European Union (EU), the so-called euro and refugee crises. While the euro crisis triggered various EU-level reforms, the refugee crisis has produced calls for policy and institutional reforms, most of which have - to date - not been adopted or implemented. We employ a liberal intergovernmentalist framework and show that differences in member states’ preferences in the two crises ensue from different exposures to negative externalities. Moreover, we attribute differences in EU member states’ willingness to engage in political reforms to variation in preference constellations among member states, producing different situation structures and bargaining dynamics. While the EU’s response to the euro crisis reflects a situation structure, which highlights both redistributive conflict and a demand for joint action, the response to the refugee crisis resembles a ‘Rambo’ game situation: the states least affected by migratory pressure were satisfied with the institutional status quo, and were thus able to leave the more affected states aggrieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies investigating political parallelism in news coverage mostly look at the frequency and evaluation of party actors, though political parallelism is not only tied to parties but also to broader political ideologies. By contrast, this study examines country differences in political parallelism focusing on the alignment of media's issue interpretations with political ideologies. Based on a content analysis of 7256 statements in 961 articles about the Euro crisis in German and Spanish online newspapers, issue frames were identified in a data-driven approach before examining how the argumentative structure of these frames referred to ideologies. Results show that ideology-guided framing is present in nearly half of all articles. But Spanish media more often used frames corresponding to their political alignment than their German counterparts indicating stronger political parallelism in the Mediterranean Model. Thus, the results support the revision of the Hallin/Mancini Model of media systems proposed by Brüggemann et al. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than halting European integration, the euro crisis, in some ways, has accelerated it. However, it is integration of a different type, which departs significantly from the rule of law-based model of integration that traditionally burnished the European Union’s legitimacy. The crisis-induced transformation of the European Central Bank (ECB) captures this trend. Through schemes such as Outright Monetary Transactions, the Bank bolstered its capacity to stabilize the euro without having its mandate formally enlarged, thus confirming the ascendency of technocratic, and often ad hoc, governance over democratically and legally circumscribed alternatives. This article posits the ECB’s expanded and politicized role as the manifestation of a new mode of integration - integration through the disintegration of law - which inverts the court-driven integration-through-law that consolidated the single market. However, the lack of a solid legitimacy base casts doubt on the long-term sustainability of this integration mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have European Union institutional actors sought to build, defend or undermine the legitimacy of crisis management during the euro crisis? Scholars have tended to investigate the euro crisis from either a pragmatic and prescriptive perspective - asking which reforms are necessary to build legitimacy in the governance structure of the Eurozone - or an analytical perspective focused on the power wielding of actors useful for understanding what actors have done and why they have been influential or not. The paper argues that rather than bifurcating the issues of legitimacy and power politics, much may be gained by investigating the relationship between legitimacy and power. Specifically, the paper employs the concept of ideational power to analyze the strategies through which actors have sought to defend their claims to three constitutive dimensions of legitimacy - input, output and throughput legitimacy - and proposes a matrix of nine pathways to legitimation that played into processes of legitimacy battles in the Eurozone crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the ECB helped mitigate the euro crisis in the aftermath of Lehman, it has stretched its monetary mandate and moved into fiscal territory. This text describes and summarizes the crucial role played by the ECB in the intervention spiral resulting from its bid to manage the crisis. It also outlines ongoing competitiveness problems in southern Europe, discusses the so-called austerity policy of the Troika, comments on QE and presents two alternative paths for the future development of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure seeks to prevent and correct destabilizing economic imbalances in the European Union (EU). Scholars are divided as to whether this instrument of economic policy co-ordination relies on familiar intergovernmental modes of decision-making or reflects supranational institutions more significant role in economic policy following the euro crisis. Such diametrically opposed interpretations are symptomatic of longstanding concerns over the lack of a clear-cut definition of European integration. To address these definitional difficulties, this article turns to the concept of legalization. Taking account of the design and early implementation of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure and using the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines as a point of comparison, it shows that the former can be understood as a modest but clear-cut increase in legalization compared to the latter. On this basis, it considers whether legalization, in spite of its own conceptual limitations, can contribute to a more rigorous definition of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between sovereign bond holdings of banks and refinancing operations by the ECB for countries in the euro area. We use data collected by Bruegel as well as a new dataset compiled from the annual statements of national central banks to estimate panel regression models. Our findings support the hypothesis that the ECB's refinancing operations have increased resident banks' exposure to domestic sovereign bonds. This is in line with the moral suasion theory advanced in the literature. These results strengthen the case for regulatory changes aimed at reducing the sensitivity of banks to sovereign risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the metaphoric frames in the coverage of the Euro crisis in newspapers across five EU countries. Our quantitative frame analysis identified five dominant frames: war, construction, disease, natural disaster, and game. In all five countries, the Euro crisis as war turned out to be the most prominent news frame. Such framing uses martial, aggressive language to describe the European public sphere. This finding is not without importance, as newspapers play a key role in shaping the general public’s perception of the Euro crisis and by extension the European Union’s institutional elite and its (in)ability to cope with crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the (lack of any lasting) impact of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory on economic policy-making in Germany. The analysis highlights the interplay between economic history and the history of ideas in shaping policy-making in postwar (West) Germany. The paper argues that Germany learned the wrong lessons from its own history and misread the true sources of its postwar success. Monetary mythology and the Bundesbank, with its distinctive anti-inflationary bias, feature prominently in this collective odyssey. The analysis shows that the crisis of the euro today is largely the consequence of Germany’s peculiar anti-Keynesianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having a European identity is expected to influence citizens’ attitudes and behaviour towards the EU community. European identity is indeed positively related to support for EU integration, but are citizens with a stronger European identity also willing to pay a price for this identification, and to what extent? The contribution provides an answer to these questions by performing multilevel analyses on the EES 2014 data. The analyses show that citizens with a stronger European identity are more supportive of financial solidarity with member states in economic crisis. This explanation for support for solidarity is stronger than explanations provided by self-interest and economic ideological position. Citizens are thus willing to pay a price for their European identity. However, one can only expect so much from European identity as significant interaction effects show that the positive relationship between European identity and support for solidarity is mitigated by experiencing economic hardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008, the European Union was hit by the most severe financial downturn since the Great Recession of the 1930s. One of the major consequences of this phenomenon was the deterioration in the enjoyment of human rights, in particular economic and social rights. While it is indisputable that the crisis itself was directly correlated to the erosion of such rights, the conditions attached to the loan agreements between defaulting countries and the three lending institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank and the European Commission, have negatively affected the rights under consideration. Loans came with strict austerity measures, such as public expenditure cuts in the realm of, inter alia, public services, benefits and social security. This article considers the deterioration in the enjoyment of economic and social rights by Union inhabitants and particularly the anti-crisis strategy adopted by the European Union, which, as will be demonstrated, directly contributed to this deterioration. The stance of the three institutions was facilitated by the less than proactive, but improving, positioning of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case law, which will be assessed. It must be noted that it is not the three institutions acting alone in this process; the Member States are the ones who agree to the loans and their conditions and implement austerity measures on the ground. However, as will be reflected, the practical role and actual input of the countries themselves in this procedure is limited. The central theoretical tenet of the article is that the European Union is re-shifting its direction to the almost absolute adoption of an economic constitution, with little regard to its social counterpart. Within the aforementioned framework, this article seeks to assess the status of economic and social rights in a crisis-hit Union, provide a theoretical explanation for this occurrence and put forth possibilities for positive change, placing the protection and promotion of economic and social rights at the heart of any responses to crisis as a method to ensure their sustainable protection effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We characterize sectoral behavior leading up to and during the Great Recession using recently available net lending and net borrowing flows of the institutional sectors in Europe and applying simple statistical derivations. We find that (1) many countries of the Northern group featured low public deficits or even budget surpluses, current account surpluses and a private sector in a net lending position, while countries of the Southern periphery, the Anglo-Saxon countries and many Eastern European economies took the mirror image; (2) with the onset of the crisis, private net lending soared in all countries, while all governments incurred deficits, consistent with the notion of a balance sheet recession; (3) private net lending is procyclical while public net lending is countercyclical in all countries; (4) household net lending tends to lead the business cycle, while corporate net lending tends to lag it; and (5) prominent concepts asserting causal relationships in sectoral net lending, such as Ricardian equivalence and the twin deficit hypothesis, are not supported by our data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Preserving the trust of bond markets is crucial for the world's many indebted countries, but it is still unclear when and how national or international actors can contribute to this goal. We present a set of arguments addressing this question and test them on the case of the eurozone debt crisis. Distinguishing between actors' capacity and willingness to avoid defaults, we argue that the crisis was marked by a lack of capacity at the national level, and limited or uncertain willingness at the European level. Accordingly, we find that European‐level efforts to reassure markets had considerably stronger effects than similar efforts at the national level. Furthermore, national efforts appear to have mattered the least in countries with the least capacity. These findings are based on a comprehensive new dataset of political events and relevant news, and they hold across a number of robustness checks and placebo tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper shows that the emergence of the federal power to tax is the result of a sovereign debt crisis at the state level. I analyse the fiscal history of the early United States (US) to demonstrate how the institutional flaws of the Articles of Confederation, mainly the central budget based on contributions from the states, so-called ‘requisitions’, led to a sovereign debt crisis on the state level, which triggered taxpayers’ revolts in 1786/1787. This social unrest, in turn, was perceived by the political élite as an endogenous threat to the union and paved the way for the fiscalization of the federal government, i.e., the creation of a fiscal union with the federal power to tax based firmly in the Constitution of 1789. This analysis concludes with four insights for the European Union (EU). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The EU is a distinct actor in global politics. Researchers have developed different concepts to explain its sui generis nature. All approaches, however, converge in the sense that the EU has acted as an important transformative power that altered political preferences in member and candidate countries and informed dominant policy paradigms that organise state-market relations in its sphere of influence. This study argues that the EU's transformative power is under stress as never before due to the internal and external political economy challenges. From an internal point of view, the way in which the euro crisis and migration waves were managed dramatically jeopardized the solidarity ethos in the EU. From an external point of view, the changing international order and the rise of emerging powers weaken the appeal of the EU governance model in global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]