Testing Times: The Growing Primacy of Responsibility in the Euro Area

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to address one of the growing causes of tension between responsiveness to electorates and responsibility to partners by analysing the new rule-bound system of economic governance that is evolving within the euro area in response to the crisis. The key argument is that the nature and depth of the external constraints that have been agreed since 2010 represent a step-change in the intrusion of external actors in the domestic government and politics of the euro states. Responsibility to the collective has emerged as the central norm of the framework of economic governance that is evolving. The norm is backed by a strong regulatory framework including sanctions. The paper concludes with an analysis of the likely impact of the new system on domestic politics and political parties under the rubric of the politics of constrained choice.

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to two anonymous referees for their insightful comments that have informed this final version of the paper. I would also like to record my debt to Peter who introduced me to the world of comparative politics in the early 1970s. His enthusiasm for his subject and the quality of his courses left a lasting imprint.

Notes

1. A blog by Pisani Ferry (2012) in January 2012 alerted me to the importance of addressing the question of the politics of constrained choice.