Overview

From 2009 to 2015, the European Union's (EU) euro area experienced an existential socio-economic crisis. To secure its institutional integrity, the EU designed several new institutions to support member states in need but also to facilitate socio-economic adjustments. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) lies at the centre of this strategy: it provides financial assistance to member states in severe crisis on an intergovernmental basis while demanding compliance with adjustment programs from program countries. Based on a comparative political economic analysis, Remaking European Political Economies shows that the EU's financial assistance programs focused strongly on reforms that led to a partial convergence of program countries based on market-based economic governance and reduced governmental influence in the economy. The book draws on extensive, empirically based case studies of two prominent euro area countries in crisis: Greece and Ireland. Dennis Zagermann illustrates that socio-economic models in the euro area can experience institutional change if exposed to severe crises in combination with financial assistance programs that include policy conditionality. In doing so, his book sheds light on the central question of whether there is a possible convergence of European models of capitalism - a question that has been at the centre of comparative political economic debates for over thirty years.

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9781487549039

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"""The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is one of the least explored European institutions; it is also, at least potentially, one of the most important. Dennis Zagermann shows how the ESM developed as a major player in European macroeconomic governance, how it shaped responses to the global economic and financial crisis at the European and national levels, and how it has been reformed to play an even more important - and perhaps controversial - role in the future. His book is essential reading for anyone interested in European crisis management."" - Erik Jones, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute ""This book sheds novel light on the intended and unintended effects of the European Stability Mechanism on the euro area countries hit by the sovereign debt crisis from 2008 onwards. By carefully explaining the partial convergence of Greece and Ireland towards market-based economic governance, Dennis Zagermann makes important contributions to the literature on comparative political economy and European Union studies."" - Lucia Quaglia, Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna ""Ten years after the euro crisis, this book takes stock of where we got to with an Economic and Monetary Union, how our understanding of the eurozone has developed in parallel, and the road we took to get there. Remaking European Political Economies reviews the post-crisis literature, evaluates the institutional innovations that the euro crisis spawned, and considers how these have, in turn, been the foundations for crisis policies during the pandemic. History matters in these case studies; but so do new policy options, which open up horizons."" - Bob Hancké, Associate Professor in Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science"

Author Information

Dennis Zagermann is a political scientist whose research concerns diverse issues of the European political economy.

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