Introduction - Recent Changes in EU Economic Governance: Methodological and Institutional Dynamics

in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2019), 15(2), 134-142

A decade after the outbreak of the Euro crisis, enough time has passed to assess its impact on EU economic governance. This Special Issue aims to identify the institutional dynamics that have occurred ... [more ▼]

A decade after the outbreak of the Euro crisis, enough time has passed to assess its impact on EU economic governance. This Special Issue aims to identify the institutional dynamics that have occurred since the crisis by using methodological approaches that reflect the rising complexity of decisionmaking under Economic and Monetary Union. The ambition of the contributing authors is to provide new theoretical insights and empirical findings and thereby to contribute to our understanding of the long-term ramifications of the Euro crisis for EU economic governance. This Special Issue addresses two broad research areas: power relations, institutional dynamics and decision-making practices, and the processes, efficacy and effectiveness of fiscal and economic policy coordination in the reformed setting of economic governance. [less ▲]

Pushing the Boundaries. New Research on the Activism of EU Supranational Institutions

in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2017), 13(2), 1007-1024

This contribution introduces the concept of ‘activism’ to the study of EU supranational institutions and their role in EU policy making and European integration. While long present in studies of the Court ... [more ▼]

This contribution introduces the concept of ‘activism’ to the study of EU supranational institutions and their role in EU policy making and European integration. While long present in studies of the Court of Justice of the EU, ‘activism’ has rarely been examined systematically in the context of analyses of other supranational institutions. This contribution offers a definition of ‘supranational institutional activism’, examines its analytical usefulness in relation to other concepts such as ‘entrepreneurship’ and through the lens of a number of political science and EU integration theories and analytical approaches. The specific analytical insights derived from the disciplines of political science, history and legal scholarship of the twelve articles of this special edition on ‘supranational institutional activism’ are also considered. While the powers and roles of EU supranational institutions have been examined in numerous studies, this article presents a concept that can contribute to a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of the contribution of these entities to EU policy making and European integration. [less ▲]

The Politics of Delegation in European Banking Union: Building the ECB's supervisory oversight capacity

in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2017)

The nature and scope of the European Central Banks’s (‘ECB’) oversight mandate over the supervision of smaller and medium banks by national supervisors has been one of the most debated aspects of the ... [more ▼]

The nature and scope of the European Central Banks’s (‘ECB’) oversight mandate over the supervision of smaller and medium banks by national supervisors has been one of the most debated aspects of the newly created European Banking Union. In particular, the issue whether the ECB should influence already established national supervisory practises and standards was not immediately straightforward. This paper applies the Principal-Agent (‘PA’) approach to explore the extent of the ECB supranational agency governing the supervisory oversight policies in the Single Supervisory Mechanism (‘SSM’). Notably, one of the important features of the SSM institutional design is the contractual incompleteness of supranational delegation. The ECB has been granted discretion to fill-in the agency contract concluded with the Member States. A brief analysis of the practical operationalization of the ECB oversight role suggests that the ECB could exploit this contract condition to pursue own policy goals (agency hold-up problem) and situate itself in “bureaucratic drift” vis-à-vis the Member-State principals. However, under slightly relaxed Principal-Agent assumptions which assume proactive role of the agent in reducing information asymmetries vis-à-vis its principal, it is also possible that the ECB managed to influence the Member States’ stance, and, in doing so, exercised effective bureaucratic entrepreneurship. [less ▲]

Pushing the Boundaries. New Research on the Activism of EU Supranational Institutions

in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2017), 13(2), 1007-1024

Higher Education in Crisis: Post-war Lessons from Finland and West Germany

in Journal of Contemporary European Research (2015), 11(2), 196-211

In today’s overpowering neoliberal dogma, the written media often renders strong economic developments and generous welfare state policies as incompatible. At a European level, the recent economic and ... [more ▼]

In today’s overpowering neoliberal dogma, the written media often renders strong economic developments and generous welfare state policies as incompatible. At a European level, the recent economic and financial crisis has worryingly reinforced this trend, exemplified by strategic cuts in higher education funding in the majority of EU member states. This article takes the present European crisis as its point of departure, and by drawing on the example of post-war higher education expansion in Finland and West Germany, it argues that crisis can provide beneficial insights into the causes, capacities, forms, and mechanisms of change in current capitalist economies under increased austerity. This analysis thereby condemns the alleged incompatibility of economic growth and egalitarianism, and concludes by suggesting – as was also implied by the Finnish and West German press of the 1960s – that investment in human capital via education needs to be maintained and increased to facilitate the EU member states out of the economic crisis. [less ▲]