Leadership in the Eurozone

The Role of Germany and EU Institutions

Magnus G. Schoeller

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030127039
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030127046
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Leadership of powerful states and organizations is crucial for the success of regional integration projects. This book offers a theoretical model explaining such leadership. By applying the model to eurozone governance and reform, the book combines innovative theorizing on leadership in regional and international affairs with original research on Economic and Monetary Union politics. Six in-depth case studies analyze the (non-)leadership of Germany and EU institutions in eurozone crisis management. Moreover, the book evaluates the eurozone's leadership record since the outbreak of its crisis and helps readers understand the leadership of collective actors, and the extent to which they can contribute to overcoming crisis and fostering European integration. In particular, the book investigates the under-researched questions of who provided leadership in the eurozone crisis and why, and which conditions are required to achieve successful leadership in the EU.

© The Author(s) 2019

M. G. SchoellerLeadership in the EurozonePalgrave Studies in European Union Politicshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12704-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Explaining Leadership in the Eurozone

Magnus G. Schoeller¹

(1)

Centre for European Integration Research (EIF), Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Magnus G. Schoeller

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Leadership of powerful states and organizations is crucial for the success of regional integration projects (Mattli 1999; Beach 2005; Tallberg 2006). Yet, these collective actors do not always provide successful leadership: they may not even emerge as leaders (leadership vacuum) or they may fail to influence the outcomes of regional integration (failed leadership). The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is a case in point. Since the outbreak of the eurozone crisis, neither Germany nor any of the supranational institutions has assumed a permanent leadership role. Instead, according to the issue at stake, we observe three different outcomes: no leadership, failed leadership, and successful leadership. This raises the questions of why and how collective actors emerge as political leaders, and—once in charge—how they influence policy or institutional change. What are the conditions for successful leadership? These questions become particularly relevant in times of crisis. However, despite a large amount of leadership literature, there is no political science approach that systematically theorizes the emergence and impact of leadership when exercised by collective actors.

This book therefore offers a causal and generalizable theoretical model to explain leadership of collective actors such as states or international institutions. By applying the model to the case of EMU governance and reform, the book combines innovative theorizing on leadership in regional and international affairs with original empirical research on eurozone politics. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with European Union (EU) and government officials, the book helps us understand the behaviour of powerful actors when it comes to leadership, and the extent to which they can contribute to overcoming a crisis and fostering European integration. In particular, the book investigates the under-researched questions of who provided leadership in the eurozone crisis and why, which actor might reasonably be expected to take the lead, and which conditions must be given to achieve successful leadership in the EU.

Research on political leadership is “disparate, under-theorised and under-researched” (Hartley and Benington 2011: 211). The resulting gap in literature is especially striking with regard to collective actors in EU politics (Helms 2017: 3; Tömmel and Verdun 2017: 103–7). In particular, there is no general theoretical model which explains the emergence and impact of leadership beyond formal “chairmanship” or specific empirical contexts.¹ Theories of European integration largely neglect the role of leadership, too. According to (liberal) intergovernmentalism, leadership is redundant as negotiation outcomes merely reflect the preferences of the most powerful states, while supranational institutions lack the resources to provide leadership (Moravcsik 1999a, b).² Neofunctionalism acknowledges that states and institutions may act as leaders in regional integration, but it leaves the variance in leadership demand and supply undertheorized (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970: 128–33; Niemann and Ioannou 2015: 199). Only Walter Mattli (1999) considers the leadership of powerful states as a crucial explanatory factor of regional integration. Still, he does not elaborate on the theoretical concept of leadership or the distinction between leadership emergence and impact. Moreover, regional integration theory has not taken up Mattli’s insights. As Finn Laursen notes: “One can wonder why Mattli’s emphasis on leadership has not produced more comparative research over the last ten years” (2010: 8, Footnote 2).

With regard to leadership research, we identify two important gaps. First, existing theory-guided work has mainly focused on individual actors, leaving collective actors such as states, supranational institutions, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) out of the picture (see e.g. Rhodes and ‘t Hart 2014).³ Second, “there is no ‘rational theory of leadership’” (Shepsle and Bonchek 1997: 380). The few existing rationalist approaches focus on very specific aspects (see Ahlquist and Levi 2011), remain at the level of formal “chairmanship” (Tallberg 2006), or refer to a very concrete empirical scope (Beach 2005). Thus, integrating the leadership factor into rationalist theorizing is still an unresolved issue on the research agenda (Elgie 2001: 8579; Brennan and Brooks 2014: 161).

Hence, there is no specific theory that helps us explain the ambiguous leadership record of eurozone crisis management. Due to its powerful position in EMU , the actor mostly called on to assume leadership was Germany (e.g. Matthijs and Blyth 2011; Paterson 2011; Bulmer 2014). Yet, Germany has not emerged as a constant leader in the eurozone. Depending on the particular issue at stake, it refrained from offering, failed to deliver, or (rarely) succeeded in exercising leadership. This pattern recurs also with regard to other crucial actors in EMU . Especially in cases where Germany did not seek to provide leadership, supranational institutions such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, or the European Central Bank (ECB) had the chance—or were forced—to fill the leadership vacuum. The performance of these actors varied as well, and we observe all three outcomes: no, failed, and successful leadership. To date, however, the causes of this patchy leadership record have not been examined in a systematic and comparative manner.

This book seeks to fill these gaps in the literature. At a theoretical level, it provides a rational institutionalist model to explain the political leadership of collective actors, thereby making a crucial distinction between a leader’s emergence and its impact. Although the book applies this model to eurozone governance and reform in times of crisis, it is equally applicable to other instances of formal and informal leadership in regional integration and international politics. With regard to its empirical contribution, the book offers an explanation for the ambiguous leadership record of the eurozone by analysing cases of crisis management in a systematic and comparative manner. It thus examines under which conditions leaders emerge in EMU and when they are successful. In so doing, the book helps the reader understand when actors are willing and capable to take the lead, how leadership can be a way of driving institutional change, and whether the E(M)U with its multiple access- and veto-points allows for the emergence of leadership at all (see Hayward 2008; Helms 2017; Tömmel and Verdun 2017).

In sum, although many political scientists assign an important role to leadership, there is no generalizable causal model going beyond formal “chairmanship” or specific empirical contexts in explaining the emergence and impact of political leadership by collective actors. This is especially striking with regard to European integration and EU governance. The recent example of the eurozone crisis leaves us puzzled in that regard, as there is no theory that can explain why states as well as supranational institutions sometimes refrain from offering, fail to deliver, or succeed in exercising leadership. The research questions arising from this puzzle therefore concern two different aspects of leadership, namely (1) its emergence and (2) its impact:

1. 1.
   Why and how do collective actors such as states or international institutions emerge as political leaders?
2. 2.
   How do political leaders influence policy or institutional change? What determines their success or failure?

1.1 The Argument

The book provides a rational institutionalist model of political leadership . It defines “leadership” as a process in which powerful actors use their resources in such a way as to guide the behaviour of others towards a common goal (Chapter 2). The basic argument states that leaders can help a group to enhance collective action when there are no, or only incomplete, institutions⁴ to do so (Chapter 3). Leadership is therefore not only a recurrent pattern of political interaction, but also a solution to collective action problems . Thus, especially in times of crisis, leaders can act as drivers of policy or institutional change, and may temporarily even function as a substitute for in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Explaining Leadership in the Eurozone
• 2. Conceptualizing Leadership: What It Is and Why It Matters
• 3. Theorizing Leadership: Emergence and Impact
• 4. Analysing Leadership I: Germany in the Eurozone Crisis
• 5. Analysing Leadership II: The EU Institutions in the Eurozone Crisis
• 6. Evaluating Leadership: The Hard Case of the Eurozone
• 7. Conclusions
• Back Matter