Comparative European Politics

Spielberger, Lukas

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00240-xpmid: N/A

During the financial crisis of 2008–2010, governments have had varying success in containing the fiscal costs of stabilizing their financial sectors. This article challenges the existing literature that attributes these differences purely to national factors and contends that the international dimension affects a government’s capacity to share the costs across borders. Specifically, if a country shares a leveraged creditor with other countries, concerns about regional contagion will drive decisions by outside actors to participate in or prevent external burden sharing. A comparison of the role of the Swedish government during the financial crisis in Latvia and the ECB’s influence on Ireland shows that these decisions can both facilitate or prevent international burden-sharing. While Latvia benefited both from maintained exposure by Swedish banks and an internationally coordinated response to its crisis, the Irish government accumulated losses because foreign banks reduced their exposure and the European Central Bank vetoed “bailing in” bondholders of bankrupt banks. Future research on financial stabilization should therefore more explicitly consider possible contagion effects from bailing in foreign creditors.

van Houwelingen, Pepijn; Akaliyski, Plamen; Dekker, Paul; Iedema, Jurjen

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00241-wpmid: N/A

Basic core political values differ widely across Europe. From a European integration perspective, a gradual convergence in core political values across European countries would be beneficial. Desirably, the direction of any possible European value convergence would be also in accordance with the values stipulated by the European Union (EU). Based on European Values Study (EVS) data from 1990 to 2017, we assess the developments among 18 EU countries with regard to public opinion on nine political value indicators, comprising three core political values: equality, individual autonomy, and cosmopolitanism. The differences and the dynamics of change in core political values between these 18 European countries are considerable. Our investigation arrives at contradictory conclusions about the outcome of the temporal development, depending on the political value we analyze. EU countries have converged on equality and cosmopolitanism values, but diverged on individual autonomy. The overall change in cosmopolitanism is, however, not in the direction the EU intends, as the countries have become more skeptical of EU enlargement. The trend in individual autonomy is in an EU-desired direction (‘same direction’), but is much slower in the former socialist countries (‘different speed’), which results in divergence on an EU-wide scale.

Etzerodt, Søren Frank

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00242-9pmid: N/A

Why do some advanced capitalist democracies experience relatively higher economic growth rates? In this paper, it is argued that complementarities between varieties of coordination and systems of social protection can help explain differences in long-run economic performance. Testing the explanatory power of the original varieties of capitalism (VoC) model and the welfare production regime (WPR) model, the article finds that long-run economic growth is conditioned by the extent to which systems of social protection are complementary to varieties of coordination. Using time-series cross-section data on 17 OECD countries from 1974 to 2009, the article finds strong support for the hypothesis that coordinated market economies with decommodified welfare states achieve relatively higher economic growth rates in the long run. The WPR model moreover seems better at explaining economic growth compared with the classical VoC model. The welfare state is therefore argued to be crucial in understanding the economic effects of varieties of coordination.

Popov, Maxim

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00243-8pmid: N/A

Being related to the concept of democracy, liberalism is nevertheless not identical with it; moreover, in its contemporary form, liberalism is rather opposed to democracy. It is unlikely that anyone would argue that neoliberalism and Reaganomics introduced by M. Thatcher and R. Reagan contained a democratic rather than authoritarian message, while the essence of Thatcherism was characterized by many analysts as authoritarian populism. The synthesis of authoritarianism and liberalism seems irrelevant due to the historical dominance of the discourse of political rather than economic liberalism. Throughout the twentieth century, liberalism developed as the main antithesis to authoritarianism and totalitarianism and therefore accentuated its fundamental disagreement with any form of collectivist ideology and communitarianism. During the acute ideological battles of the Cold War, liberalism was associated with democracy and opposed to authoritarian socialism. Influenced by the ideas of J. Rawls and J. Habermas, political liberalism was thought of as a synonym for democracy even from egalitarian and progressive positions in the context of actually existing liberal democracy. Speaking about the long-term relationship between economic liberalism and democracy and analyzing growing overregulation of political processes in the current eurocrisis, it is necessary to recall the concept of authoritarian liberalism, first proposed by H. Heller in 1932. Heller’s concept of authoritarian liberalism emphasizes the connection between authoritarianism of “the strong state” (C. Schmitt) and economic liberalism of market rationality. The paper substantiates that in critical and transformational periods the actualization of authoritarian liberalism corresponds to the fundamental tension between market capitalism and representative democracy.

Sanchez Salgado, Rosa

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00244-7pmid: N/A

This article analyses the verbal display and role of emotions in the European Parliament (EP). Contributing both to European Studies and Parliamentary studies, this article shows how emotions are expressed and how they reflect power and status dynamics. Emotions are indeed used differently depending on the power position of Members of the EP (MEPs). This article also reveals that emotions may play a role in crisis situations by constraining the choices and policy solutions under consideration. This qualitative study compares parliamentary debates on two of the most relevant recent crises before 2020: the refugee crisis (2014–2017) and the economic crisis (2009–2014). Empirical evidence is drawn from the systematic in-depth content analysis of 25 EP debates.

Lima, Valesca

doi: 10.1057/s41295-021-00245-6pmid: N/A

Social movement coalitions are a vital component within the dynamics of political mobilization. While previous research has established why and how coalitions emerge and dissolve, how they are maintained and the outcomes they generate have been less explored, especially in housing studies. This research contributes to the study of movement coalitions through an empirical examination of the dynamics of how coalitions interact, cooperate, and sustain alliances, in addition to exploring the outcomes that are produced as a result of these coalitions. It draws upon a comparative approach of housing coalitions in Dublin and Lisbon, where local housing groups have played a critical role in protesting against housing injustices and in articulating alternative policy solutions to the housing crisis. In mapping the diversity of coalition members, this research finds that tolerance for difference and negotiation capacity impacts how long coalitions last as well as the outcomes that they lead to. This study contributes to the study of coalitions by analyzing the relationship between outcomes and the mechanisms which sustain coalitions using a comparative framework.