Political alternatives under European economic governance: evidence from German budget speeches (2009–2019)

Abstract

Since the early 2010s, budgetary policy-making in EU member states has been subject to tighter European constraints. While recent research shows the relevance of intergovernmental negotiations for setting European policy priorities, little is known about how much political alternation in government still matters for national budgetary agendas. This paper investigates this question in Germany, one of Europe's most powerful and financially stable countries. Drawing on original data, the paper first shows how political alternation in German cabinets changes governments' budgetary agendas. Secondly, it shows how this alternation also influences the formulation and adoption of European policy recommendations. Based on these findings, the paper argues that governments in financially stable countries can pursue alternative policy agendas, but that these need to find consensus at both the national and European level. The range of alternatives is therefore inevitably contingent upon the national institutional framework and country's relative strength within the EU.

Rethinking the Governance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the COVID-19 Era

“…Content analysis has been defined as a research methodology that objectively and systematically describes the content of a given body of communication [52]. It has been commonly used to analyze policy-related topics (e.g., [53,54]). Argument mining is a technique that identifies argumentation structures in a discourse [55].…”

How Will COVID-19 Impact on the Governance of Global Health in the 2030 Agenda Framework? The Opinion of Experts

“…Nevertheless, we have seen that being global entails certain risks (42): high interdependence in terms of production (global value chains) and international human movements have influenced the rapid expansion of the pandemic, so it is more than probable that a new order will emerge in which solutions to this interdependence must be found (61, 108, 140), perhaps with a relevant role played by international cooperation rather than the implementation of protectionists measures (88). Many voices are being raised against this selfish behavior (22), calling for a more cooperative and holistic approach (29,145), especially in terms of emphasizing the importance of multilateral platforms (30) and the need to provide greater support to developing countries (30,34), because of the need to make sure that they are able to manage this crisis (27,33,34,38).…”

“…If the economic slowdown persists, the 2030 Agenda implementation will be negatively impacted (27,34,140), even though all countries have agreed to support it in the long term. Governments are asking their citizens to endure severe constraints in the present, for the sake of positive impacts that will be felt in the future (29). On the other hand, internal dissensions within a country (for instance, between the states and the federal government in the US, (85)) or within a bloc (for example, the EU, (89, 93)) reduce the strength of current commitments, because any movement in the equilibrium among the different forces at stake could lead to a defection.…”

“…Some experts claim that many of these trends were already latent, and the virus has merely intensified them (15,141,145). For example, the already existing financial market instability in some countries will increase (115), migrations will be exacerbated, despite their initial slowdown due to mobility restrictions (108), and our ability to fight climate change will be reduced (27,29). Some terms used by experts, such as "chaos" (50) or "extremely disruptive" (99), reflect the feeling that perhaps we will never recover the world we used to know.…”

“…The fearful populations of democratic countries will be willing to accept more political control and citizen surveillance if these guarantee a better fight against pandemics (50). However, it is not clear that authoritarian countries are better prepared to deal with COVID-19 (29,59,69).…”