France’s déclassement in the Eurozone

The Eurozone crisis has not only affected Europe’s finances and economics. It has also reshuffled our understandings of who we are: as the constituent peoples of the Union, of what kind of a Union we should share and why, and of the rules of our living together. This crisis has brought to light a fundamental tension built into the European project. On the one hand, the European Union (EU) was built around the aspiration to bring into being an entirely new kind of political animal, opposed to both a federal state writ large and a loose association of states. At the very core of this endeavour, we propose, lies the principle of mutual recognition. Yet on the other hand, the propensity to deny each other recognition remains imprinted into the Europeans’ DNA. On the level of how the European demoi (peoples) related to each other, the current crisis has incited bitter battles over demands and denials of recognition.

Critical Policy Studies, 2016

With the different crisis processes unfolding in Europe, European integration has changed its modus. Critical observers have identified the rise of 'authoritarian neoliberalism' or 'new constitutionalism' in order to denote the new character and continued neoliberal content of European integration. This article explores the content of the new European mode of integration by analyzing several documents addressed to France by the European Commission as coordinating discourse; and the communicative discourse of German politicians who support and disperse this neoliberal agenda, for example, via interviews in French newspapers. In highlighting the discursive strategies of those speech acts, I argue that those discourses are undemocratic in character as they seek to depoliticize important issues. This analysis helps us understand how the EU disciplines larger member states and also why the French Socialist Government is not pursuing its election campaign program but a mostly neoliberal policy course in the area of economic, social and fiscal policies.

Critical Policy Studies, 2018

With the different crisis processes unfolding in Europe, European integration has changed its modus. Critical observers have identified the rise of 'authoritarian neoliberalism' or 'new constitutionalism' in order to denote the new character and continued neo-liberal content of European integration. This article explores the content of the new European mode of integration by analysing several documents addressed to France by the European Commission as coordinating discourse; and the communicative discourse of German politicians who support and disperse this neo-liberal agenda, e.g. via interviews in French newspapers. In highlighting the discursive strategies of those speech acts, I argue that those discourses are undemocratic in character as they seek to depoliticise important issues. This analysis helps us understand how the EU disciplines larger member states and also why the French socialist government is not pursuing its election campaign programme but a mostly neo-liberal policy course in the area of economic, social and fiscal policies.

Europe has become a vivid example of intergroup dynamics with all the risks and chances it holds for peaceful and respectful co-existence. While Europe as a superordinate social category has the capability of solidarity between its subcategories (i.e., nations), negative emotions and behaviors among the countries' citizens have become more prevalent throughout the emerging crisis. This article aims to analyze the psychological outcomes (i.e., negative attitudes) following on from the structural and economic imbalances within the European Union. More precisely, we argue that political reactions towards the Euro crisis facilitated routes to nationalism and thereby fostered supremacy in a few countries. This perceived supremacy of some countries, in turn, legitimized negative reactions towards others. Based on predictions from a social identity perspective, we describe how these processes perpetuate themselves. We also suggest strategies that might prevent the idea of a common Europe from failing.

Hierarchies in World Politics

This chapter argues that to understand international hierarchies, we need to examine not only the type of hierarchy, but also processes of internalization of – and resistance to – hierarchies. We will then discover that many hierarchies are not simply imposed from above, but that subordinate actors are often complicit in the ongoing production and negotiation of hierarchies. I begin this argument with the simple observation that some international hierarchies are taken for granted. Today, it seems obvious that there is a hierarchy in the Eurozone with Germany at the top and Greece at the bottom. Scholars, politicians and media see Germany as the leader and economic power-house of Europe, while Greece is represented as ‘bankrupt’ and ‘dysfunctional’ with high levels of unemployment. What we often overlook, however, is that it was not inevitable that these particular countries would occupy these positions in the hierarchy. Why Greece and not Italy, Spain or Ireland? We cannot explain why Greece became the poster boy for the Eurozone crisis based purely on its economic troubles – because Spain and Italy share similar debt problems as Greece and are just as closely monitored and subordinated to the austerity measures imposed by the IMF, the EU and international lenders. Likewise, while the German economy has been doing relatively well, it suffers from structural problems, including a growing number of working poor. This first part of the chapter explores why hierarchy appears awkward in multilateral institutions emphasizing sovereign equality. It shows how hierarchies are produced, upheld and challenged through stigmatizing and stereotyping labels. The second part of the chapter presents a survey of how German and Greek newspapers label – and thereby also rank Germany and Greece – and react to the way in which their countries are ranked themselves in a period of three months during the height of the euro crisis. The labels include Germany as ‘Nazi oppressor and colonizer’, ‘strict teacher’ and ‘naïve victim’ and Greece as ‘colonized and oppressed – and possible neo-Nazi resistant’, ‘immature pupil’ and ‘moral sinner’. Each label positions the state very differently. Based on an in-depth analysis and contextualization of the stereotyping of self and other, the chapter suggests that rather than merely consolidating Germany’s (and Northern Europe’s) economic and political superiority and sustaining the subordination of Greece (and other Southern states); the euro crisis generates a series of more complex, self-reflective national debates and political gestures of repair and embarrassment. These dynamics reveal a deep concern in both Greece and Germany about how they are perceived on the international scene. The chapter concludes with reflections on how international status struggles are more interactive and self-reflective than usually assumed, suggesting different ways in which hierarchies may change from within.

Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 2017

Undeniably, the economic crisis of 2008 was a critical juncture and a stress test for the EU and the Europeanness of its populations and elites. The crisis therefore offers an appropriate research setting for addressing two major research questions. In the following paragraphs, we first question how optimistic and unified the national political elites are towards the EU after the economic crisis of 2008. Second, we investigate which factors shape and drive the attitudes towards the EU of the national political elites.

This paper investigates why and how French and German leaders converged on an agreement for reforming the European Monetary Union in response to the outbreak of the debt crisis in Europe. To answer these questions, we begin by revising Putnam's two-level game in order to offer a constructivist account of the politics of 'grand bargains' in the European Union. The Eurozone negotiations, we argue, are better viewed as a simultaneous double game in which preferences are constructed and reconfigured as leaders address simultaneously the other European decision makers and their own constituencies. In a discursive institutionalist perspective, a frame analysis is conducted on the basis of press conference speeches and press interviews in 2011 and 2012. It is demonstrated that the Franco-German agreements on new policy and institutional arrangements were only possible because the respective leaders resorted to differing discourses in terms of paradigms, norms and values.

Fifteen into one: The European Union an its Member States, 2003

2018

Conceptual and empirical analysis of modern Euroscepticism: The cases of France, United Kingdom and Italy, 2021

Understanding the multidimensional nature of euroscepticism is not only a matter of normative issues concerning efforts to deepen European integration, it also raises issues of political behavior, identities, public policies, democratic legitimacy, economy, ideology, and other areas. Euroscepticism is a heterogeneous and dynamic phenomenon, which is not defined as a concept by a commonly accepted theoretical framework. In a wider context, it refers to the opposition to the European Union, either in its entirety, as a supranational organization, or in its existing structure, form and political direction. Moreover, euroscepticism, in different interpretative contexts, is something that is expressed in a political system both on the left and right of the political spectrum. The economic and financial crisis, along with the fiscal adjustment policies that followed, on the one hand, and the refugee crisis on the other, contributed to the increase of negative attitudes towards the EU from its citizens and provided the space for the development of eurosceptic parties and groups, invested with a populist and nationalist agenda. The purpose of this study is to outline the modern parameters of euroscepticism within the EU. After the theoretical framework and the necessary conceptual clarifications on the term of euroscepticism, this paper examines three case studies. The cases of France, the United Kingdom and Italy are studied in relation to the development of euroscepticism in the past few years, both within the party system and in that of public opinion. The findings show that euroscepticism is largely related to issues of sovereignty, identity, and to the degree of confidence in the national political system. Furthermore, euroscepticism is related to the two major crises the EU has been called on to face and which have severely damaged its image - the economic and refugee crises. The methodology includes bibliographic research and the secondary analysis of quantitative data through Eurobarometer surveys on trends in public opinion towards the European Union.