IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jcmkts/v53y2015i5p1094-1109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘As I Drifted on a River I Could Not Control’: The Unintended Ordoliberal Consequences of the Eurozone Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Nedergaard
  • Holly Snaith

Abstract

Germany has a long history of institutionalized ordoliberalism. While these ideas may be implemented almost unreflexively within Germany, its status of ‘reluctant hegemon’ within the European Union has led to purposive uploading of many of these ideas to other Member States. In this article, we first define what these ordoliberal actions consist of, before tracing their evolution within Germany and the EU. Our intention is to detail how acting within ordoliberal tenets has led to some rather messy and unpredictable results for Germany and other EU Member States alike – a state particularly emphasized by the crisis. In so doing, we (re)invoke Robert Merton's treatment of unintended consequences. In particular, we are concerned with Germany's increased role in enforcing fiscal order in the EU, counter to our interviewees’ (drawn from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) express intentions to retain Germany's political distance.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Nedergaard & Holly Snaith, 2015. "‘As I Drifted on a River I Could Not Control’: The Unintended Ordoliberal Consequences of the Eurozone Crisis," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 1094-1109, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:53:y:2015:i:5:p:1094-1109
    DOI: 10.1111/jcms.12249
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12249
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jcms.12249?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. C. Hefeker, 1994. "German Monetary Union, the Bundesbank and the EMS collapse," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 47(191), pages 379-398.
    2. Jörg Bibow, 2013. "At the crossroads: the euro and its central bank guardian (and saviour?)," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(3), pages 609-626.
    3. Cukierman, Alex, 2008. "Central bank independence and monetary policymaking institutions -- Past, present and future," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 722-736, December.
    4. Werner Bonefeld, 2012. "Freedom and the Strong State: On German Ordoliberalism," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 633-656, November.
    5. Charles Wyplosz, 2006. "European Monetary Union: the dark sides of a major success [‘The macroeconomics of low inflation’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 21(46), pages 208-261.
    6. Blyth, Mark, 2013. "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199828302.
    7. Buiter, Willem & Rahbari, Ebrahim, 2012. "The ECB as Lender of Last Resort for Sovereigns in the Euro Area," CEPR Discussion Papers 8974, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Marco Buti & Nicolas Carnot, 2012. "The EMU Debt Crisis: Early Lessons and Reforms," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(6), pages 899-911, November.
    9. Vanberg, Viktor J., 2004. "The Freiburg School: Walter Eucken and Ordoliberalism," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 04/11, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    10. Heinz G. Grossekettler, 1994. "On Designing an Institutional Infrastructure for Economies: The Freiburg Legacy after 50 Years," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 21(4), pages 9-24, September.
    11. Kenneth Dyson, 2000. "EMU as Europeanization: Convergence, Diversity and Contingency," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 645-666, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rutger Claassen & Anna Gerbrandy & Sebastiaan Princen & Mathieu Segers, 2019. "Rethinking the European Social Market Economy: Introduction to the Special Issue," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 3-12, January.
    2. Hien, Josef, 2019. "The Religious Foundations of the European Crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 185-204.
    3. Silvia Blum & Till van Treeck, 2019. "Ordoliberalism: The Next Generation. What Do Prospective Social Science Teachers in Germany Think About the Euro Crisis?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 787-804, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arnaud Lechevalier, 2015. "Eucken under the Pillow: The Ordoliberal Imprint on Social Europe," Post-Print halshs-03781875, HAL.
    2. Jürgen Wandel, 2019. "Prospects for an ordoliberal reform of the European Union," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 28-43, February.
    3. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler & Daniel Nientiedt, 2015. "Ordoliberalism, Pragmatism and the Eurozone Crisis: How the German Tradition Shaped Economic Policy in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 5368, CESifo.
    4. Jörg Bibow, 2013. "Lost at Sea: The Euro Needs a Euro Treasury," IMK Studies 35-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    5. Samuel Brazys & Aidan Regan, 2016. "These Little PIIGS Went to Market: Enterprise Policy and Divergent Recovery in European Periphery," Working Papers 201517, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    6. Nedergaard, Peter, 2013. "The Influence of Ordoliberalism in European Integration Processes - A Framework for Ideational Influence with Competition Policy and the Economic and Monetary Policy as Examples," MPRA Paper 52331, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Wörsdörfer Manuel, 2021. "Digital Platforms and Competition Policy: A Business-Ethical Assessment," Journal for Markets and Ethics, Sciendo, vol. 9(2), pages 97-119, December.
    8. Stephan Puehringer & Laura Porak & Johanna Rath, 2021. "Talking about competition? Discursive shifts in the economic imaginary of competition in public debates," ICAE Working Papers 123, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    9. Stephan Puehringer, 2016. "Think Tank networks of German neoliberalism. Power structures in economics and economic policies in post-war Germany," ICAE Working Papers 53, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    10. Jakob Kapeller & Stephan Puehringer & Christian Grimm, 2022. "Paradigms and policies: the state of economics in the German-speaking countries," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1183-1210, July.
    11. Mitchell Christopher W., 2016. "The structure of financial markets and the form of state bailouts, 1974–2009," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 97-122, August.
    12. Dold, Malte & Krieger, Tim, 2017. "Competition or conflict? Beyond traditional ordo-liberalism," Discussion Paper Series 2017-02, University of Freiburg, Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy.
    13. K. Horn, 2022. "Ordoliberalism: neither exclusively German nor an oddity. A review essay of Malte Dold’s and Tim Krieger’s Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy: Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 547-560, December.
    14. Oisin Suttle, 2022. "The puzzle of competitive fairness," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 21(2), pages 190-227, May.
    15. Steininger, Lea & Hesse, Casimir, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 357, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    16. Hayo, Bernd & Neuenkirch, Edith, 2014. "The German public and its trust in the ECB: The role of knowledge and information search," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 286-303.
    17. Ftiti, Zied & Aguir, Abdelkader & Smida, Mounir, 2017. "Time-inconsistency and expansionary business cycle theories: What does matter for the central bank independence–inflation relationship?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 215-227.
    18. Achim Truger, 2015. "Implementing the golden rule for public investment in Europe," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 138, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    19. Jörg Bibow, 2018. "How Germany’s anti-Keynesianism has brought Europe to its knees," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 569-588, September.
    20. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:53:y:2015:i:5:p:1094-1109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-9886 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.