Explaining policy change in the EU: financial reform after the crisis

ABSTRACT

The European Union (EU) has been hit by financial and economic crises since 2008. To shed light upon the impact of these crises, this article reviews punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to develop expectations that are tested against two cases of financial regulation and privatization policy. In one, despite the demand for a new model from EU leaders, limited change occurred; in the other, despite legal limitations, significant change emerged. Analysis of the cases reveals a new form of policy venue, and the suggestion that the EU PET literature must consider more systematically and explicitly the role of veto players in shaping policy change.

KEYWORDS:

• Financial regulation
• privatization
• punctuated equilibrium theory

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the editors and the reviewers for their perceptive comments on an early draft. We also wish to thank the participants of the Conference: Governing Finances in Europe: Shifting Regimes and Shifting Powers, 27–28 May 2016, Uppsala University, where an early draft of this article was presented. This article was revised while Lucia Quaglia was a research fellow at the BIGSSS (University of Bremen) and the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK). Finally thank you to Neil Carter who read the article more than once and offered invaluable advice.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 http://www.hradf.com/en/the-fund/mission

Additional information

Funding

The research underpinning this article was conducted under the auspices of a grant held by Judith Clifton from the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement No. 726755 (Project CITADEL: H2020-SC6-CULT-COOP-2016-2017) and Research Project APIE 2/2015-17: ‘Government, Incentives and Risk Management in Global Banks’ of the Santander Financial Institute, UCEIF, Banco Santander (Official State Bulletin number 236, 9 December 2014); and a Leverhulme Trust grant (RPG -2014-183) held by Charlotte Burns.

Notes on contributors

Charlotte Burns

Charlotte Burns is a senior lecturer in environmental politics and policy at the University of York.

Judith Clifton

Judith Clifton is a professor of economics at the University of Cantabria.

Lucia Quaglia

Lucia Quaglia is a professor of political science at the University of York.