Month: August 2020

Many European democracies are still some way off from achieving equal gender representation at the highest echelons of political power. Nonetheless, over the past decades the number of women holding ministerial portfolios in government cabinets has increased. How does the growing number of women in leadership positions shape the politics of governments? In their article “How women in the executive influence government stability” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Svenja Krauss and Corinna Kroeber offer evidence indicating that women in positions of power in the executive branch bolster government stability. Drawing on previous research showing that women in leadership positions are more likely to favour compromise and consensual solutions to conflicts than their male colleagues, Svenja and Corinna argue that governments run by female prime ministers and cabinets with a higher share of female members are more likely to avoid early termination due to internal conflicts. Using original data from 27 European countries between 1945 and 2018, Svenja and Corinna show that while there is no discernible effect of female prime ministers on government duration, cabinets with a higher proportion of female members are more resilient and less likely to face early termination than governments dominated by men. These findings suggest that “female ministers are able to introduce different behavioural norms and change the nature of politics towards a more compromise-oriented setting.”

Following the 2008 financial crisis, administrations in EU member states faced incentives to prop up their domestic industries and shelter national economies from the pressures of transnational markets. These incentives set the stage for tensions with the European Commission, which may allow ‘horizontal’ state investments benefiting overall European competitiveness, but polices ‘vertical’ state aid favouring domestic companies over single market competitors. In her article “Aiding the state: administrative capacity and creative compliance with European state aid rules in new member states” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Nicole Lindstrom finds that the Hungarian government, usually a vocal proponent of state intervention, reported high proportions of horizontal state aid in the aftermath of the crisis. Nicole contrasts this finding with evidence of higher proportions of post-crisis vertical state aid in Estonia, an otherwise paradigmatic neoliberal state. Drawing on interviews with Hungarian and Estonian state aid officials as well as members of the European Commission to explain this counterintuitive pattern, Nicole offers a novel insight into the role administrative capacity plays in EU member states’ compliance with state aid rules: Skilled civil servants in the Hungarian administration shared the political leadership’s ideological commitment to assist domestic industries and facilitated the appearance of rule-conforming behaviour, while in practice implementing policies that ran counter to the EU’s objectives. Nicole’s findings show that “national administrators are important but hitherto understudied agents in navigating growing tensions between the uniform application of supranational free market rules and increased domestic politicization of the core incentives and obligations underlying the single market project.”

Thirty years after the revolutions of 1989, a divide between Western and Central Europe remains apparent. In his article “Caught between 1945 and 1989: collective memory and the rise of illiberal democracy in postcommunist Europe” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Peter Verovšek argues that the commitment to the rule of law and protection of individual rights in West European democracies contrasts with the emphasis on the nation’s popular sovereignty and republican majority will characterising the approach to democracy in much of Central Europe. Peter notes that differences in societies’ collective memory, centred on two different historical ruptures, help explain the diverging conceptions of democracy in Western and Central Europe. While Western Europeans turn to the symbolic date of 1945, representing a repudiation of nationalism and the importance of protecting individual freedoms from the state, collective memory in Central Europe is shaped by the fall of communism in 1989, ending an oppresive political system imposed by an external power. Peter argues that “the differing memory cultures in these two regions help to explain why the West emphasizes the liberal protection of rights by a neutral, internationally embedded state, whereas postcommunist Europe emphasizes majoritarian voting and national sovereignty.”