Author: JEPP Online

Author feature: Manuela Moschella

Manuela Moschella, professor in International Political Economy at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa), introduces her most recent work and one of her recent JEPP publications. She is our (first) featured JEPP author. Not only is her work intriguing, her research appears twice in JEPP’s current issue (Vol. 23, no. 6).

Since the start of the crisis central banks have significantly expanded the list of policy tools to stabilize domestic economies. Moving beyond interest rate policy, leading central banks have adopted forward guidance, quantitative easing, qualitative easing and, recently, a policy of negative interest rates. However, we still know little about the determinants of central banks’ policy choices. Why did central banks choose one particular policy instrument instead of another? I’m currently puzzling with this question in a book project I’m developing with Domenico Lombardi (Centre for International Governance Innovation). In the book, we compare the unconventional monetary responses to the crisis offered by the Fed, the Bank of England and the ECB. The article we just published in JEPP (“The government bond buying programmes of the European Central Bank: an analysis of their policy settings”) is part of our ruminations as it zooms into the ECB to identify the factors that shape the design of its monetary policies. In addition to the “usual suspects” – interests, institutions and ideas – our analysis shows that the ECB’s self-image as independent from governments’ authority loomed large in its decisions.

JEPP is proud to announce the publication of its first Debate Section. This new format is devoted to sets of short articles, which take contrary or complementary standpoints on a common – topical and controversial – issue. At the same time, contributions are expected to be based on rigorous social science research, e.g. drawing on previous theoretical knowledge to understand the broader implications of recent phenomena and/or revisiting established theoretical accounts in light of fresh empirical evidence. Submissions to the debate section are peer reviewed as entire sets with a particular eye on their debate character, i.e. the degree to which individual contributions engage with each other. The Debate Section editor welcomes contributions or suggestions for contributions at any time (Michael.Blauberger@sbg.ac.at).

The inaugural Debate Section forthcoming soon is entitled, “British Exit from the EU: Legal and Political Implications”, edited by Graham Butler, Mads Dagnis Jensen and Holly Snaith. The reality of an EU Member State leaving the European Union is a salient issue. Such a scenario will have implications for the political, legal and economy aspects of both the Member State in question, and the Union itself as a whole. Beyond the immediate case of the forthcoming British referendum in June 2016 on whether to ‘remain’ or ‘leave’ the EU, the Debate Section casts analysis upon issues that may arise in future scenarios, such as (re)negotiation of membership or a ‘new settlement’, referendums, the broader implications of a shrinking Union, and challenges for the broadening levels of uncertainty. In addition to the three editors, the Debate Section includes contributions from Paul James Cardwell, Adam Łazowski, Daniela Annette Kroll, Dirk Leuffen, and Tim Oliver, that each delivers sharp compact contributions on different perspectives of ‘Brexit’, and wider issues of differentiated integration in Europe.

By Andreas Kruck

More recent accounts of credit rating agencies (CRAs) have largely been stories of failure. Nonetheless, CRAs continue to co-determine access to capital markets and costs of borrowing. Investors still follow CRAs’ standard of creditworthiness, and even powerful states zealously seek to preserve their top ratings. How can that be? Why is the authority of CRAs so resilient even in the face of recurrent, costly and widely recognized rating fiascos? In “Resilient Blunderers: Credit Rating Fiascos and Rating Agencies’ Institutionalized Status as Private Authorities”, I make a historical institutionalist argument to resolve this puzzle: Flawed public policy choices in the past and non-intended institutional dynamics have spawned later regulatory dilemmas culminating in the paradoxical outcome that CRAs’ mistakes have fostered a progressive institutionalization rather than a down-grade of their role as private governors. Read my contribution to the JEPP Special Issue on “Fiascos in Public Policy and Foreign Policy” to learn more about a particularly perplexing instance of path-dependent post-crisis reform and its broader lessons for (non-)learning from failures committed by private governors.

Cynical political pundits might contend that policy failures are the default outcome of politics – some tend to be surprised if policy actually works. But what feeds into our evaluation of policy as either successful or potentially disastrous? Mark Bovens and Paul ‘t Hart argue that the analysis of policy failures “is, by definition, not a neutral endeavour, since policy fiascos are not neutral events”. Read their article “Revisiting the study of policy failures” published in the Journal of European Public Policy to learn more about what makes us label policy as a ‘success’ or ‘failure’.

Disproportionate responses to ill-conceived threats can be just as costly as underestimating a particular risk, especially when it comes to foreign policy-making. When “states and international organizations over- and under-react to perceived transboundary threats and hazards that emanate from or easily spread beyond a given state’s territory, their mistakes can have equally harmful consequences for the citizens they mean to protect”. Read Christoph Meyer’s article “Over- and under-reaction to transboundary threats: two sides of a misprinted coin?” published in the Journal of European Public Policy to find out what conditions states’ misapprehension of external threats.

Following the aphorism that those who will not risk cannot win seems not to bode well for British prime ministers. Klaus Brummer argues that British leaders with particularly high self-confidence and in pursuit of conflictual political strategies are more likely to be attached the label ‘fiasco-prime ministers’ than their cannier colleagues. Read his article “‘Fiasco prime ministers’: leaders’ beliefs and personality traits as possible causes for policy fiascos” published in the Journal of European Public Policy to learn how personality traits of individual decision-makers can contribute to the evolution of policy fiascos.

Policy blunders are a common feature of public and foreign policy-making. While we all seem to know a policy failure when we see it, how can policy failures be analyzed systematically? What are their causes and consequences, and – most importantly – who’s to blame? Kai Oppermann and Alex Spencer, guest editors of the Journal of European Public Policy’s latest Special Issue “Fiascos in public policy and foreign policy” present an exciting and insightful collection of the latest research on policy fiascos and bridge the divide between scholarship on public and foreign policy failures. Take a look at their introduction outlining the aims and key findings of the Special Issue, and don’t forget to check out the issue itself here as well!

“MEPs may find themselves trapped between their loyalty towards the leadership and their own standing in the party” writes Daniel Finke in his article “The burden of authorship: how agenda-setting and electoral rules shape legislative behaviour” published in the Journal of European Public Policy. Whether or not MEPs seek confrontation with their national party leadership over legislation authored by their European parliamentary group depends chiefly on how MEPs were elected in the first place as well as on their electoral standing.

The Normative Power Europe concept popularized the essentialist claim that the EU’s internal constitution translates into its external behaviour. But how exactly does the EU’s internal identify affect foreign policy? Kai Hebel and Tobias Lenz contend that “what looks like the outcome of identity-driven processes … often results from political processes that are highly contingent”.

Read their article “The identity/policy nexus in European foreign policy” published in the Journal of European Public Policy to find out more about the nuts and bolts linking collective self-understandings and foreign policy outcomes.