Political Science and the Eurozone Crisis. A Review of Scientific Journal Articles 2004–15

We take a closer look at how political science engaged with Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) over a period of 12 years (2004–15). How intensively, and with what focus, have political science journals dealt with EMU? How has the scientific discourse on the topic changed with the outbreak of the global financial crisis, which led to a eurozone crisis? Our systematic, qualitative analysis of articles (N=161) dealing with EMU in selected peer‐reviewed political science journals yields a number of interesting findings. First, we observe marked differences between the pre‐ and post‐crisis period. Specifically, political science has increasingly taken up issues of financial regulation and questions of trust in a monetary union. Second, political scientists did not engage as much as expected with the democratic ramifications of the crisis management. Finally, different crisis narratives persist, and none have been completely refuted.