The Crisis behind the Eurocrisis: The Eurocrisis as a Multidimensional Systemic Crisis of the EU

Description

The Crisis behind the Euro-Crisis encourages dialogue among scholars across the social sciences in an attempt to challenge the narrative that regarded the Euro-crisis as an exceptional event. It is suggested instead that the Euro-crisis, along with the subsequent crises the EU has come to face, was merely symptomatic of deeper systemic cracks. This book's aim is to uncover that hidden systemic crisis - the 'crisis behind the Euro-crisis'. Under this reading it emerges that what needs to be questioned is not only the allegedly purely economic character of the Euro-crisis, but, more fundamentally, its very classification as an 'emergency'. Instead, the Euro-crisis needs to be regarded as expressive of a chronic, dysfunctional, but 'normal' condition of the EU. By following this line of analysis, this book illuminates not only the causes of contemporary turbulences in the European project, but perhaps the 'true' nature of the EU itself. Cover Half-title page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Notes on Contributors Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Elephant in the Room: A Tale of Crisis 1 There Is No (Legal) Alternative: Codifying Economic Ideology into Law Part I The Crisis as a Crisis of the EU’s Identity 2 The Roots of the European Crisis: A Historical Perspective 3 The End of Self-fulfilling Europe 4 The Authoritarian Neoliberalism of the EU: Legal Form and International Politico-Economic Sources Part II The Crisis as a Crisis of the EU’s Political and Democratic Legitimacy 5 Authoritarian Liberalism: The Conjuncture behind the Crisis 6 The Inherently Undemocratic EU Democracy: Moving beyond the ‘Democratic Deficit’ Debate 7 Europe and Constituent Powers: Ruptures with the Neoliberal Consensus? 8 ‘Who’s Afraid of the European Demos?’: The Uneasy Relationship between the European Union and Referendums 9 Can Public and Voluntary Acts of Consent Confer Legitimacy on the EU? Part III The Crisis as a Crisis of the EU’s Economic Model 10 The Fiscal Compact: A Paradoxical Fiscal Governance Machine 11 The Rise of Unaccountable Governance in the Eurozone 12 Unification from Above, Its Contradictions and the Conjuncture Initiated by the Eurozone Crisis Part IV The Crisis as a Crisis of the EU’s Social Character 13 A Tale of Two Documents: The Eclipse of the Social Democratic Constitution 14 How to Analyse a Supranational Regime That Nationalises Social Conflict?: The European Crisis, Labour Politics and Methodological Nationalism 15 Which Refugee Crisis?: On the Proxy of the Systemic Eurocrisis and Its Spatialities Part V Joining the Dots and the Way Forward 16 The European Crisis of Economic Liberalism: Can the Law Help? 17 With Time to Prepare: Planning an Exit from the EMU 18 Brexit and the Imperial Constitution of Europe Conclusion Index