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Introduction: Explaining Leadership in the Eurozone

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Leadership in the Eurozone

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ((PSEUP))

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Abstract

Leadership of powerful states and organizations is crucial for the success of regional integration projects. Yet, collective actors do not always provide leadership: they may not even emerge as leaders or simply fail to influence the outcomes of regional integration. The Economic and Monetary Union is a case in point. Since the outbreak of the eurozone crisis, neither Germany nor any of the supranational institutions assumed a permanent leadership role. This raises 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? Next to the gap in literature and the empirical puzzle, this chapter presents the argument, evidence, method, and structure of the book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The works of Beach (2005), Tallberg (2006), and Beach and Mazzucelli (2007) are highly exceptional in that regard. However, while the model proposed by Tallberg (2006) addresses only formal leadership in negotiations (“chairmanship”), Beach (2005) and Beach and Mazzucelli (2007) restrict their models to EU institutions and EU constitutional negotiations, respectively. Moreover, they do not make an analytical distinction between a leader’s emergence and its actual impact.

  2. 2.

    Disagreeing with Moravcsik, Beach (2005) and Tallberg (2006) have shown that considerable informational asymmetries and differing institutional positions, which have both been neglected by liberal intergovernmentalism, make a significant difference with regard to negotiation outcomes in EU politics.

  3. 3.

    An exception is a strand of International Relations literature focusing on the role of powerful states in regional integration (e.g. Destradi 2010; Krapohl et al. 2014; Malamud 2011; Mattli 1999; Schirm 2010). However, even within this literature, the concept of leadership remained largely under-theorized (Laursen 2010: 13f.).

  4. 4.

    In this case, “institutions” are understood as man-made rules of behaviour that constrain individual action and thereby shape social interaction (North 1990; Héritier 2007). For the understanding of institutions as used in the theoretical framework, see Sect. 3.1.

  5. 5.

    In order to make sure that the different outcomes do not just depend on the different leaders in charge, three of the case studies represent each of the three possible outcomes while focusing on the same actor (Germany).

  6. 6.

    In order to avoid truncated variation, the cases must reflect the full variance the dependent variable can possibly have.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Magnus G. Schoeller

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Schoeller, M.G. (2019). Introduction: Explaining Leadership in the Eurozone. In: Leadership in the Eurozone. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12704-6_1

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