Magnus G. Schoeller

University of Vienna | UniWien · Institut für Politikwissenschaft

Leadership by powerful states is considered crucial to the success of regional integration. Since the European Union (EU) entered a ‘polycrisis’, many eyes have therefore been on Germany. But does the German political elite see itself as a leader in Europe? To date, whether German political elite members have cast off their much-cited ‘leadership a...

This article introduces the special issue on smaller states and their relation to Germany in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). While there has been a mushrooming literature on the role of Germany in EMU, there has been hardly any research on how smaller states interact with EMU’s most powerful member. However, recent developments such as the r...

The relationship between Austria and Germany is characterised by many political and cultural commonalities and strong economic interdependencies. Moreover, the asymmetry between the two countries, both in terms of economic size and political power, has long time characterised the relationship as one between ‘leader’ and ‘follower’. Yet, despite the...

A hegemonic power can guarantee the status quo in an international economic system. However, domestic or international changes may unsettle a hegemon’s priorities. In such phases, smaller states benefiting from the existing system may fear that the hegemon will fail to keep the system stable. How do they react if they lose trust in the hegemon’s ab...

When the two most powerful EU member states, Germany and France, proposed a genuine budget for the eurozone, the odds were in favour of a new stabilization instrument. However, no such eurozone budget materialized. Instead, member states agreed on the ‘Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness’ (BICC), a reform delivery tool that lac...

In numerous areas of European Union (EU) policy-making, the European Parliament (EP) managed to expand its informal institutional rights through the use of bargaining strategies. We put forward a crucial, but largely overlooked bargaining strategy that the EP uses for its self-empowerment: By "moving first", the EP unilaterally interprets its forma...

This article traces whether and how Germany’s preferences on the integration of fiscal constraints have evolved since the founding of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Focusing on state elites and mass publics as driving forces of government preferences, the article also examines what has shaped German preferences since the Treaty of Maastrich...

The debate on an EU recovery package to fight the corona crisis evokes patterns known from the eurozone crisis, where northern creditor states, among them Austria, were pitted against southern debtor states. Indeed, the frugal four (Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden) have already announced opposition against generous spending plans based...

This article examines the extent to which Germany has provided leadership in creating institutions to overcome the euro area crisis. Under which conditions does Germany act as a driver of institutional change, and what are the implications for the Economic and Monetary Union? Germany’s leadership record is mixed: while it took the lead in enhancing...

Political scientists face problems when assessing a leader’s impact: how can we know that a policy outcome or institutional change is caused by leadership? This article argues that in addition to relying on comparisons and counterfactuals, we need to trace the causal mechanisms by which leadership affects outcomes. Therefore, the article proposes a...

This book analyses the European Parliament’s strategies of self-empowerment over time stretching across cases of new institutional prerogatives as well as substantive policy areas. It considers why and how the Parliament has managed to gain formal and informal powers in this wide variety of cases. The book provides a systematic and comparative anal...

This chapter develops the book’s theoretical argument and expectations for which we draw on rational choice institutionalism as well as sociological institutionalism. First, in Chapter 2.1, we identify reasons for the EP’s empowerment based on rationalist bargaining theories of institutional change. We assume that actors such as the EP seek to maxi...

In this chapter, we investigate the EP’s institutional role in economic governance during the Eurozone crisis and its aftermath. The Lisbon Treaty restricts the EP’s right to co-legislation in economic governance primarily to the area of multilateral surveillance. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, however, coincided with the onset of the E...

In this chapter, we examine why and how the EP managed to expand its powers in the nomination and investiture of the European Commission from zero at the outset of European integration to a quasi-election of the Commission President using the Spitzenkandidaten procedure in 2014. This chapter provides evidence that the EP has been using a multitude...

In this chapter, we summarise and review the most important findings of the empirical case studies. We crystallise how in all of these cases the EP had considerable success in expanding its formal and informal powers by using its strategies skilfully. Furthermore, we systematically compare which strategies the EP used to widen its powers; how this...

This chapter examines the EP’s informal empowerment in the highly politicized area of EU trade agreements. In trade policy, the Lisbon Treaty granted the EP a major new right of ratification of international agreements falling under the common commercial policy. We analyse how the EP managed to significantly widen its powers beyond the final approv...

This chapter serves to explain how we assess our theoretical expectations empirically by relying on the congruence method in combination with process-tracing. Further, it specifies our methods of data collection. Moreover, we explain the book’s case selection rationale covering the EP’s institutional empowerment (or lack of it) over time and across...

This chapter analyses the EP’s success and failure in empowering itself in the budgetary process. The EP’s prerogatives in the budgetary process have increased significantly since the creation of the European Economic Community. However, this empowerment has been mostly informal and irregular: treaty provisions kept intact for more than thirty year...

This chapter examines the driving forces of the EP’s formal and informal institutional power gains in the EU’s legislative process. Over a period of around fifty years, the institutional rule went from giving the EP a merely consultative role in the legislative procedure to establishing it as a coequal legislator with the Council of Ministers under...

The European Union (EU) is currently enmeshed in a polycrisis. Yet, a treaty change to ease these crises is out of reach. We ask how a supranational actor, the European Parliament (EP), strives for more de facto powers amidst this situation. Relying on refined propositions of inter-institutional bargaining theory, we argue that the EP skilfully dep...

With the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament (EP) obtained co-decision rights in economic governance for the first time. Soon afterwards, the outbreak of the eurozone crisis required a reform of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). When negotiating EMU reform, the EP sought to push its rights beyond the Lisbon provisions, so as to obtain an in...

This chapter provides three case studies analysing the role of EU institutions in crisis management. The first case study examines how and why the European Commission did not emerge as a leader in handling the controversial issue of Eurobonds. The second case study sheds light on the role of the European Parliament by analysing how it emerged, but...

This chapter elaborates a model of leadership that combines rational-choice institutionalism with leadership theorizing. If there is a collective action problem and a lack of institutions, there will be a demand for leadership. A leader emerges if the demand meets the supply of leadership. While the demand for leadership arises from the costs a gro...

Drawing on the state of the art in leadership research, this chapter elaborates a conceptualization of political leadership. In doing so, the chapter clarifies crucial questions that emerge from the literature: How does leadership differ from sheer power? Are leaders necessarily successful? How can we conceptualize the many different types of leade...

The first section in this chapter presents the comparative results of the analysis. It demonstrates that actors supplied leadership only if they expected individual benefits from doing so. The interplay of power resources, preference distribution, and institutional constraint accounts for the impact of leadership. The second section in this chapter...

When the Economic and Monetary Union found itself in crisis, the actor mostly called on to assume leadership was Germany. This chapter provides three case studies on Germany’s role in the first bailout of Greece, the proposal of a “super-commissioner”, and the genesis of the Fiscal Compact. The analysis not only probes the plausibility of the book’...

Leadership of powerful states and organizations is crucial for the success of regional integration projects. This book offers a theoretical model explaining such leadership. By applying the model to eurozone governance and reform, the book combines innovative theorizing on leadership in regional and international affairs with original research on E...

Leadership of powerful states and organizations is crucial for the success of regional integration projects. Yet, collective actors do not always provide leadership: they may not even emerge as leaders or simply fail to influence the outcomes of regional integration. The Economic and Monetary Union is a case in point. Since the outbreak of the euro...

The close co-operation between French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel (‘Merkozy’) dominated a significant part of eurozone crisis management. Yet, after the election of a new French government in 2012, the Franco-German co-operation in the Economic and Monetary Union deteriorated. This article asks why the Franco-German tandem got st...

In recent years, the European Parliament (EP) has gradually expanded its oversight powers in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In doing so, it went beyond the limited competences provided by the Lisbon Treaty. This contribution takes stock of the EP’s current oversight powers in EMU. Furthermore, it examines how the EP was able to obtain these...

Starting from the striking effect of the ECB’s announcement of Outright Monetary Transactions, this paper examines why and how the ECB emerged as a leader in fighting the Eurozone crisis. Based on a rational institutionalist approach to political leadership, the paper argues that the ECB emerged as a leader because the benefits of preserving the co...

During the Eurozone crisis, the so-called ‘Merkozy duumvirate’ emerged as an informal, but highly visible EU policy-making pattern. This article asks why such forms of decentralized bargaining emerge and what this implies for the theory of EU institutions. According to an approach based on negotiation theory, the article argues that Merkozy is a st...

Throughout the eurozone crisis, observers called upon Germany to assume leadership. Yet, Germany has not emerged as the hoped-for leader. According to the issue at stake, we observe three different outcomes: firstly, Germany refused to lead; secondly, Germany assumed leadership, but failed to deliver; thirdly, Germany acted as a successful leader....

This report analyses the increasing role played by the European Parliament (EP) in the EU decision-making process. In the first part (Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5), it describes how the EP acquired more power in legislation, comitology, in the appointment of the European Commission and in the budgetary field. In the second part (Sections 6 and 7), the re...

This article examines why and how political leaders emerge and, once in charge, what determines their success or failure. To explore these questions, I present a theory of political leadership that takes into account both the structural and the behavioral aspects of the concept. I argue that the emergence and the impact of leadership represent two...

During the ongoing Eurozone crisis we have witnessed the emergence of new modes of governance in Europe. This regards, amongst others, the rise of the ‘Merkozy duumvirate’ and the ‘Frankfurt Group’. In this paper we ask why these two forms of decentralized bargaining emerged and what their emergence implies for the theorizing on EU institutions and...

This paper explores the origins and the impact of political leadership: Why and how do political leaders emerge? And, once in charge, how do these leaders influence outcomes? What determines their success or failure? In order to answer these questions, the paper presents a theory of political leadership which takes into account both the structural...