Stella Ladi

• Queen Mary University of London

This article examines whether the EU has been projecting protean power on the global stage within the coordinative Europeanisation mode. Protean power is about an actor’s ability to confront external challenges by innovating and transforming itself. The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated the EU’s capacity to innovate and transform itself in light of an...

Since 2008, the European Union (EU) has been engulfed in several crises. While distinct, these crises are feeding into each other and are testing the capacity and resilience of EU and member states, bringing forward common policy questions and new forms of cooperation. The permanent character of this state of crisis has made analysts talk about our...

This paper analyses the design and negotiations of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) which the EU member states were required to formulate so as to access the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). By focusing on three Eurozone members (Austria, Greece, and Slovakia) which represent distinct voices and experiences within the EU in...

This article argues that differences in sociopolitical reputation can explain why interest groups fail or succeed in influencing policymakers and that therefore sociopolitical reputation is a useful addition to the conceptual toolbox of interest groups scholars. Focusing on pharmacies and their associations in Greece and Portugal between 2005 and 2...

The COVID‐19 pandemic brought forward new questions about the efficient implementation of arduous public policies. Drawing evidence from the pandemic, this article argues that, during crises, policymakers will often opt for evidence‐informed policymaking, hoping for better results. In line with previous studies, we show that citizens trust more pol...

Between 2010 and 2019, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) were implemented. To what extent were those conditions implemented? After conditionality, to what extent have governments rolled back changes purs...

In the last decade, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding were implemented. What room of manoeuvre did the governments of these countries have? After conditionality, to what extent were governments willing and abl...

Analysing the handling of the pandemic’s first phase in Greece, the article attempts to explain the reasons for its relative success. It suggests four main reasons: First, the predominance of evidence-informed policymaking led by strong and decisive leadership. Second, a timely and firm crisis response, driven by the prior experience of other Europ...

In the last decade, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding were implemented. What room of manoeuvre did the governments of these countries have? After conditionality, to what extent were governments willing and abl...

In the last decade, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding were implemented. What room of manoeuvre did the governments of these countries have? After conditionality, to what extent were governments willing and abl...

Exploring the challenges of Covid-19 for the European Union (EU) during March-August 2020, this article argues that contrary to prior crises the EU has demonstrated a certain degree of adaptability to a ‘permanent’ emergency mode. This adaptability varies across policy areas under study. Inter-crisis learning has been higher in state aid and econom...

This article analyses the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic crisis represents a window of opportunity towards fundamental change in the economic governance of the European Union (EU). Adopting a historical institutionalist (HI) perspective and drawing insights from the policy learning literature, we argue that contingent learning immediately to...

This article explores the rise of new conflicts of sovereignty especially with regard to popular sovereignty in the EU polity. It asks whether referenda in the national realm are effective tools to enhance popular sovereignty at supranational level. To elucidate this question, we distinguish between embedded and unilateral referenda. Empirically, t...

The Greek crisis started in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis of 2008, and it officially ended in August 2018 when Greece exited the Third Economic Adjustment Programme that it had signed with its international lenders to avoid default. Greece had to seek help from international lenders, including the European Commission (EC), Europea...

The Greek crisis started in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis of 2008, and it officially ended in August 2018 when Greece exited the Third Economic Adjustment Programme that it had signed with its international lenders to avoid default. Greece had to seek help from international lenders, including the European Commission (EC), Europea...

The chapter focuses on two important developments in European governance that have been particularly pronounced in the last few years. These are a tendency toward more coercive Europeanization stemming from an increasingly assertive role taken by the European Union institutions, but also occurrences of increased divergence from the EU norms and pre...

This article discusses the role of think tanks in the production of ideas guiding recent change in Brazil’s economic policy. It claims that think tanks are significant policy-making agents preparing the society for change – via their communicative discourse – but also attempting to influence the interaction between political elites – via their coor...

This paper attempts to go beyond actor-centered explanations of the European Union's (EU) presence in regulatory politics by examining the role of the EU in the diffusion of regulatory norms and practices. We explore the international diffusion of public procurement policy, to which multiple organizations and especially the EU and the World Trade O...

There has been a proliferation of administrative practices and processes of policy-making and policy delivery beyond but often overlapping with traditional nation state policy processes. New formal and informal institutions and actors are behind these policy processes, often in cooperation with national public administrations but sometimes quite in...

The European Union (EU) is at a critical juncture that will either trigger further integration or reinforce a mode of intergovernmental cooperation. The spread of market pressure to a growing number of states demonstrates that the crisis needs to be dealt with at the European and not just the national level. Up to now the ‘politics of extreme auste...

Greece was the first European Monetary Union (EMU) country to sign a Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) with the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) in order to secure financial assistance and prevent a total collapse of its economy following the severe international economic crisis. The MEFP (2010) and th...

The Eurozone crisis and the indecision of the EU leaders to move towards a concrete and long-lasting solution have raised once more the discussion about the future of the European project. Will the EU manage to come out of the crisis stronger, or will the Eurozone collapse and with it the EU will be directed to an intergovernmental phase? Although...

This chapter analyses the processes of policy-making in Greece. The focus is on the use of research evidence by policy-makers and politicians and the role of experts in policy-making. One of the main criticisms of public administration in Greece is the lack of implementation of laws and governmental decisions. This serious gap between policy and it...

The relationship between globalisation and Europeanisation is conventionally studied by focusing on the domestic level. In this article we explore this relation- ship at the international level instead. We examine the way in which the two phenomena in the form of the ILO and the EU relate to one another. Adopting a discursive institutionalist appro...

Greece initially signed a Memorandum with the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) that was followed by further agreements in order to get financial assistance and to avoid a total collapse of its economy following the severe international economic crisis. The Memorandum and the subsequent agreements, apart from its suggesti...

The study of Europeanization concerns the domestic reaction to the strengthening and widening of European Union (EU) activities that directly affect domestic polities, politics and policies.1 The literature on Europeanization has slowly moved from the study of member states to the study of candidate countries, and special attention has recently bee...

The paper adopts a historical institutionalist approach to Europeanization and argues that policy change is facilitated by three factors. First, it is driven by ‘soft’ mechanisms of Europeanization such as policy transfer. The EU provides the framework for reform and functions as a platform of best practices. Policy transfer mechanisms are implemen...

The main motivation for exploring the relationship between globalization and Europeanization is the understanding of the importance of exogenous factors for policy change at the domestic level. Can we distinguish the impact of Europeanization to that of globalization? What is the relationship between globalization and Europeanization and what can w...

Environmental policy is one of the most regulated and one of the most Europeanised policy areas. This article analyses the concept of Europeanisation, discusses its mechanisms, the mediating factors that lead to change and its possible outcomes. It explores the relationship of specific mechanisms and mediating factors to policy convergence, inertia...

This article explores the role of expertise in the reform process in Greece by utilising the advocacy coalition framework. Knowledge, power and policy reform are discussed by comparing three frameworks that place knowledge in the centre of the analysis: advocacy coalitions, epistemic communities and policy transfer networks. The theoretical claims...

this paper and the basis for an empirical research project which explores the relationship between these phenomena. The paper further focuses on the role of think tanks as agents of policy transfer and thereby explores a further limitation in the existing literature; the absence of a systematic discussion of think tanks as a key agent of policy cha...

Public administration reform, aiming at good governance and modernization of the state, is part of the political discourse for every nation on the globe. The term "good governance" has been discussed in the literature (e.g. Rhodes, 1996, Frederickson, 2005) and has been extensively used by international organizations such as the World Bank, the Int...