How Europe’s Political Leaders Made Sense of the Euro Crisis: The Influence of Pressure and Personality

Crisis, learning and policy change in the European Union

“…Indeed, Van Esch (2014 and 2015) documents ambiguity, a relative level of flexibility (most of all in secondary beliefs), and a modest degree of convergence in EU leaders' views during the crisis. Yet it appears clear that core beliefs were not fundamentally altered (Van Esch 2015). This is the proof, for us, that our mechanism is plausible.…”

“…Most of the recent innovations in fiscal monitoring/surveillance and structural reforms derive from this commitment (Schimmelfennig 2015), as well as it does the critical decision to renege on the no bail-out clause of EMU in 2010 and to implement first ad-hoc rescue packages for financially distressed Eurozone members and then to establish a permanent stability fund. These innovations took place, paradoxically, without an explicit quantum leap, not only in the ideational and discursive dimension of decision makers, but also in their sense of uncertainty, threat and urgency (Van Esch 2015;Van Esch and Swinkels 2015). 1 The political debate on the necessity of a resilient Euro and further integration has led Merkel and Hollande and different EU leaders to talk about constitutional federalism in allusive, almost reluctant ways (Borriello and Crespy 2015: 515).…”

Prime minister leadership style and the role of parliament in security policy

“…LTA has generated an expansive area of research. It has been used to study the personalities of many leaders, including US presidents and presidential advisors, British PMs, sub-Saharan African leaders, Iranian leaders, Israeli PMs, Soviet Politburo members, and heads of international organisations such as the European Union (EU) and the UN (see, for example, Crichlow, 1998; Dyson, 2006, 2009, 2016; Foster and Keller, 2014; Hermann, 1984, 1987, 2003; Keller, 2005a, 2005b; Kille and Scully, 2003; Mastors, 2000; Preston, 2001; Schafer and Crichlow, 2010; Shannon and Keller, 2007; Taysi and Preston, 2001; Van Esch and Swinkels, 2015). This research has shown that leaders’ personality traits do indeed vary and that its seven personality traits systematically link to policies leaders choose for their country or organisation.…”

A foreign policy analysis perspective on After Victory

“…Research in FPA explores how leaders see the world and what instruments (including unilateral or multilateral) they believe are effective, how much they believe they can control events, how complexly they think about international relations, and how they interact with others. Three broad findings in this research are relevant here: (1) leaders vary – leaders within the same political system and within the same international system believe and act differently; (2) a key difference between leaders is that some respect constraints, others challenge them; and (3) these differences can have profound effects on policymaking processes and foreign policy choices (see, for example, Çuhadar et al, 2017; Feldman and Valenty, 2001; Hermann, 1993; Hermann and Hagan, 1998; Horowitz and Stam, 2014; Kaarbo, 1997, 2018; Saunders, 2011; Schafer and Walker, 2006; Van Esch and Swinkels, 2015).…”