Paradigm formation and paradigm change in the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact

Abstract

This article analyses whether the European Union’s (EU) Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) has been underpinned by a policy paradigm. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the debate on the existence and importance of paradigms in policy-making. It uses a causal mapping technique to reconstruct the beliefs behind three key policy documents in the SGP’s development, assessing to what extent these beliefs conform to two dominant economic policy paradigms. The analysis shows that the policy beliefs behind the SGP have been a mixture of economic policy paradigms, in which the emphasis placed on each paradigm has changed over time. This implies that internally coherent mixtures of policy paradigms are possible. This is likely also to be the case in many other areas of (EU) policy-making. Our findings have important implications for the debate on policy-change, as they suggest that paradigmatic change is likely to proceed more through gradual changes within mixes of paradigms than through radical paradigm shifts.

The advantage of paradigmatic contestation in shaping and selling public policies

“…An important element of critique involves his structuralist point of departure, focussing on punctuated equilibrium dynamics underlying "paradigmatic" change. This neglects the common empirical reality in public policy of incremental and gradual change (Schmidt 2011;Carstensen 2015;Daigneault 2015) as well as the possibility of a number of incremental policy changes together resulting in a paradigm shift over time (Peters et al 2005;Kay 2011;Daigneault 2015;Princen and van Esch 2016). The historical institutionalist approach Hall applies thus overstates the role of path dependency and the ensuing policy stability, neglecting conflicts over ideas and policy assumptions below the surface that can function as forces of more incremental change (Peters et al 2005).…”

“…The second implication emphasises that paradigms are "mutually exclusive" (Carstensen 2015, 298), proposing "fundamentally different, incommensurable ways of seeing the world, and of identifying and ordering core principles upon which policy is formulated and decided" (Carson et al 2009, 389). Both aspects of incommensurability are put into question on the basis of empirical research showing that paradigms may be partly overlapping and commensurable (Skogstad 2011;Daigneault 2015;Princen and van Esch 2016), which is also the case in the CAP Erjavec 2009, 2015;Feindt 2010;Alons and Zwaan 2016).…”

“…Departing from the two facets of the assumed incommensurability between competing paradigmsparadigms being internally consistent and mutually exclusive (Carstensen 2015, 298), I explain how relaxing the two different aspects of this assumption results in different strategies policymakers have at their disposal when legitimating their preferred policies. While empirical research has repeatedly claimed that in empirical reality paradigms are often neither completely internally consistent nor externally mutually exclusive (Daigneault 2015;Princen and van Esch 2016), systematic theorising on how this affects policy actors' room for manoeuvre, in terms of policy options and the repertoire of (discursive) strategies available to legitimate policy preferences in the decision-making process, remains limited. This article's conceptual contribution to the paradigm debate thus also presents relevant insights for the literature on policy change more broadly conceived, by providing a better understanding of the process of policy change.…”

“…While the focus in this article is only on the CAPa policy known for its paradigmatic contestation (Daugbjerg and Swinbank 2009;Feindt 2010Feindt , 2017 the contribution of the in-depth empirical analysis has importance beyond this single domain, as contestation already exists in more domains and is likely to develop in others. Apart from the agricultural policy domain, trade policy, environmental policy and monetary policy are other prime examples where paradigmatic contestation can be found (Nilsson 2005;Skogstad 2008;Feindt 2010;Alons and Zwaan 2016;Princen and van Esch 2016;Daugbjerg et al 2017). Furthermore, with increasing policy openness, policy consultations and shared policy jurisdictions, particularly within the EU, paradigmatic contestation and paradigm mixes instead of single dominant or even hegemonic paradigms are likely to become a phenomenon of increasing importance.…”

Contested governance: The new repertoire of the Eurozone crisis

“…To be sure, a focus on syncretic practices and discourse will not sound radically new to ideational scholars. Recent scholarship has already edged away from viewing ideas in paradigmatic terms (e.g., Ban, 2016;Carstensen, 2011;Daigneault, 2014;Princen & Van Esch, 2016;Widmaier, 2016), and has increasingly acknowledged the evolutionary adaptability of neoliberal ideas and practices (e.g., Babb, 2013;Ban, 2016;Princen & Van Esch, 2016;Schmidt & Thatcher, 2013). 3 In particular, Vivien Schmidt's work (Carstensen & Schmidt, 2016;Schmidt, 2008) usefully highlights the importance of discourse.…”