Smoke with fire: Financial crises and the demand for parliamentary oversight in the European Union
- PDF / 932,971 Bytes
- 33 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 83 Downloads / 160 Views
Smoke with fire: Financial crises and the demand for parliamentary oversight in the European Union Federica Genovese 1
& Gerald
Schneider 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The handling of the 2008 financial crisis has reinforced the conviction that the European Union (EU) is undemocratic and that member states are forced to delegate overwhelming power to a supranational technocracy. However, European countries have engaged with this alleged power drift differently, with only a few member states demanding more parliamentary scrutiny of EU institutions. This article develops a political economy explanation for why only some states have enforced mechanisms to monitor the EU more closely. Our theory focuses on the role of the crisis and the impact of fiscal autonomy in countries outside and inside currency arrangements such as the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). We argue that, in the aftermath of a severe economic shock, member states outside the EMU possess more monetary and fiscal resources to handle the crisis. These would then demand oversight of EU decision-making if their fiscal sustainability depends on the Union. By contrast, Eurozone states that need policy changes cannot address the crisis independently or initiate reforms to scrutinize the EU. Hence, we argue that during the heated moments of severe economic downturns, parliaments in Eurozone countries discuss supranational supervision rarely. As these legislatures have nevertheless to give in to the popular demand for EU control, they express support for more EU supervision in the infrequent times of debate. We provide evidence for our theory with a cross-national analysis of EU oversight institutions, and a new original dataset of parliamentary debates during the Eurozone crisis. Our findings highlight the political consequences that financial nosedives have across the diverse membership of a supranational organization. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the German Political Science Association and the Political Economy of International Organizations conference, as well as research seminars at the Free University Berlin, Leiden University, WZB, Tel Aviv University, University of St Gallen and the Institute for Advance Studies Toulouse. We thank conference and seminar participants, and Zareh Asatryan, Simon Hix, Martin Hoeppner, Kai Konrad, Rhea Molato, John Roemer, Thomas Sattler, Tal Sadeh, Enrico Spolaore, Aneta Spendzharova, Bernard Steunenberg, Jean Tirole and Vera Tröger for comments. We are grateful to Licia Biotti, Marlon Brandt, Alexander Bräunig, Claire Galesne, and Valerie Weber for research assistance and Thomas Winzen for sharing data. The paper also profited from comments by the guest editors and three anonymous reviewers. Schneider acknowledges funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG - German Research Foundation) under the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments – EXC-2035/1 – 390681379. Electronic supplementary material The online
Data Loading...
