Publications
Editorial
- J. Ganderson, A. Altiparmakis, A. Kyriazi, W. Schelkle (eds.), ‘Brexit: The Crisis that Wasn’t for the EU?’, West European Politics (47:5), DOI
Journal Articles
- J. Ganderson, A. Kyriazi (2024) ‘Braking and Exiting: Referendum Games, European Integration and the Road to the UK’s Brexit Vote’, Political Studies Review (23:2), pp. 461-481, DOI
Abstract
The UK’s in-out referendum on European Union membership is often attributed to an incompatibility inherent in the UK–EU relationship, or else a rising tide of Euroscepticism forcing a reckoning. We argue that the referendum should be understood as the culmination of parliamentary ‘referendum games’ in the preceding years, whereby backbenchers periodically applied pressure to office-seeking leaders who strategically defused this by promising public votes. These games were episodic and escalatory, coinciding with integrative European treaties which activated transient Eurosceptic backlashes. While referendum avoidance was personally rational, leaders’ repeated parlays created a standalone referendum politics, ratcheting up the intensity of backbench demands based on past promises and democratic renewal. After the Lisbon Treaty, a tipping point was reached, transforming calls for a ‘brake’ on integration to demand for binary ‘exit’ vote at the next treaty moment. This accompanied the Euro-area crisis in 2011, effectively ending David Cameron’s discretion to continue the game. To show this, we plot all mentions of EU-related referendums and adjacent terms in the House of Commons between 2000 and 2015. We descriptively identify five peak salience flares around EU treaty moments and then analyse 263 interventions by Members of Parliament to show how referendum pressure ratcheted up over time.
European Union • Referendums • Brexit • Euroscepticism • British politics • Quantitative and qualitative text analysis - J. Ganderson, A. Altiparmakis, A. Kyriazi, W. Schelkle (2024) ‘Brexit: The Crisis that Wasn’t for the EU?’, West European Politics (47:5), pp. 997-1020, DOI
Abstract
This special issue introduction recalls the alarm raised in EU capitals and Brussels after the UK’s in-out referendum delivered a Leave vote in June 2016. The fear was of a domino effect and the further fragmentation of an already divided EU. Seven years later, it is clear that there was rapid attrition of Eurosceptic triumphalism, and the EU-27 showed remarkable unity. This required a sustained collective effort to contain a membership crisis and maintain the EU polity. Yet, the issue contributors challenge the notion that the alarm was unfounded and explain why this counter-factual did not materialise, even though potential for future membership crises of different sorts was revealed. Theoretically, this supports an understanding of the EU as a polity that is fragile, yet able to assert porous borders, exercise authority over a diverse membership, and mobilise a modicum of loyalty when the entire integration regime is under threat.
European Union • Brexit • Cleavages • Crisis • Post-functionalism - J. Ganderson, N. Donati, M. Ferrera, A. Kyriazi, Z. Truchlewski (2024) ‘A Very European Way Out: Polity Maintenance and the Design of Article 50’, Government & Opposition (Online), DOI
Abstract
Multilevel polities do not typically facilitate secession, so why did the European Union adopt Article 50? Revisiting formative debates from the 2003 Convention on the Future of Europe, we combine archival research with an original dataset of delegate debates over two levels: the existence and procedural operation of an exit article. This reveals essential new detail on the genealogy of Article 50. We locate this institutional innovation within a Rokkanian–Hirschmanian theoretical framework which treats exit closure as necessary for loyalty and resilience. Further refining this ‘polity’ perspective, we find many participants showed awareness of the potentially disruptive implications of an exit article. Yet, given extant tensions around ‘ever closer union’, a Eurocentric procedural design prevailed as a safety valve, granting EU authorities default control over any exit process. This European logic of ‘controlled opening' offers a potential blueprint for other integrating compound polities and international organizations facing backlashes from member states.
European Union • Polity Building • Secession • Article 50 • Euroscepticism - J. Ganderson, A. Altiparmakis, A. Kyriazi and J. Miró (2023) ‘Quiet Unity: Salience, Politicisation and Togetherness in the EU’s Brexit Negotiating Position’, West European Politics (47:5), pp. 1045-1071, DOI
Abstract
A surprising feature of Brexit has been the united front the EU-27 presented during post-referendum negotiations. This membership crisis arrived when the EU had been facing multiple overlapping political and economic crises revealing deep cleavages both between and within member states. How did negotiations prevent a widening politicisation of European integration? In this article a novel dataset is used, containing national and European newspaper Brexit coverage between 2016 and 2020 to establish how negotiating stances were formed in key EU institutions and five influential member states: Ireland, Spain, France, Germany and Poland. The results indicate that the European Commission could maintain a strong, centralised negotiating position over Brexit because the preferences of these member states were mutually inclusive, their negotiating stances aligned, and each national case was subject to generally low levels of domestic politicisation. As a result, while Brexit shocked the EU, its immediate fallout could be contained even during uncertain times.
Brexit • European Union • Negotiations • Politicisation • Media Content Analysis - J. Ganderson, K. Alexander Shaw and W. Schelkle (2023) ‘The Strength of a Weak Centre: Pandemic Politics in the European Union and the United States’, Comparative European Politics (21:4), pp. 448-469, DOI
Abstract
The European Union presents a puzzle to political systems scholars: how can a developing polity, with all its attendant functional weaknesses, be rendered politically stable even through moments of a policy crisis? Building on insights from the literature on fiscal federalism, this article challenges much conventional wisdom on Europe’s incompleteness. This is based on the corollary of Jonathan Rodden’s concept of Hamilton’s Paradox: whereas a strong centre cannot resist exploitation by states because it has the means to rescue them, a weak centre’s lack of exploitable capacity may induce states to support, and even empower, it in a crisis. This article argues that in providing a contemporaneous stress-test, Covid-19 serves to expose both the pathologies of a strong-centred federation and the surprising resilience of a weak one. It highlights three polity features—powers, decision-making modes and integrity—and charts their political implications during an acute crisis. The article argues that in the EU these features incentivise cooperative ‘polity maintenance’ between polarised states, a feature absent in an American polity marked by rivalry between polarised parties. The article thus challenges notions that the EU’s incompleteness necessarily leads it to dysfunction or that it should strive to emulate established federations.
Covid-19 • Crisis Response • European Union • Federalism • US politics - J. Ganderson, Z. Truchlewski and W. Schelkle (2023) ‘Who is Afraid of Emergency Politics? Public Opinion on European Crisis Management during Covid-19’, Comparative European Politics (21:4), pp. 470-490, DOI
Abstract
After a decade of crisis management, the democratic implications of emergency modes of governance in the European Union (EU) are under the spotlight. The prevailing analysis is critical. Scholars point to an emergent, distinctly European trend of transnational crisis exploitation where elite appeals to exceptional pressures serve asymmetric power and influence, overriding democratic norms and potentially fuelling Eurosceptic backlash. However, the literature does not ask whether citizens consider themselves disempowered by the EU’s emergency politics, with its alleged emphasis on urgency and technocratic problem-solving. The relative symmetry and simultaneity of the Covid-19 crisis across Europe offers an opportunity for an empirical examination of public opinion on traits of emergency politics. We juxtapose the implications of emergency politics for public opinion with the transnational cleavages literature and use survey data from 15 member states on EU- and national-level pandemic responses to examine the competing hypotheses. Our findings indicate perceptions of crisis management are largely determined by prior views on EU integration and democracy. More generally, the results suggest that the transnational cleavage remains overall a key driver and delimiter of Euroscepticism in crisis times. Though there is some variance between emergency politics dimensions, we do not detect a widespread perception of disillusionment motivated by EU emergency rule.
Crisis politics • Emergency Politics • European Union politics • Covid-19 • Public Opinion • Cleavage Theory - J. Ganderson (2023) ‘Exiting after Brexit: Public Perceptions of Future European Union Member State Departures’, West European Politics (47:5), pp. 1199-1222, DOI
Abstract
Public opinion scholarship suggests that Europeans broadly interpret Brexit as a cautionary fable rather than an encouraging blueprint to follow. Yet, Brexit singularly demonstrates the possibility of European disintegration, and is but one of multiple recent crises that have brought the potential for member state departures into focus. Drawing on new survey data from 16 countries and using logistic regressions, this article charts Europeans’ perceptions of the likelihood future EU exits over the next decade. It finds evidence of asymmetric motivated reasoning: Euroscepticism and pro-Brexit views strongly associate with perceiving exits likely, while among Europhiles this association is only ameliorated, not reversed. This reveals two gaps with repercussions for understanding EU public opinion dynamics. First, between Eurosceptic policy elites’ softened policy stances on exit and their supporters’ steadfast sense that further departures remain likely. Second, between Europhiles’ scepticism of Brexit and a residual lack of confidence in EU cohesion.
Brexit • European Union • Public Opinion • Euroscepticism • Motivated Reasoning - J. Ganderson (2022) ‘Prawn Cocktails and Cold Shoulders: Labour, the Conservatives and the City of London since the 1990s’, Political Quarterly (93:2), pp. 209-217. DOI
Abstract
Public opinion scholarship suggests that Europeans broadly interpret Brexit as a cautionary fable rather than an encouraging blueprint to follow. Yet, Brexit singularly demonstrates the possibility of European disintegration, and is but one of multiple recent crises that have brought the potential for member state departures into focus. Drawing on new survey data from 16 countries and using logistic regressions, this article charts Europeans’ perceptions of the likelihood future EU exits over the next decade. It finds evidence of asymmetric motivated reasoning: Euroscepticism and pro-Brexit views strongly associate with perceiving exits likely, while among Europhiles this association is only ameliorated, not reversed. This reveals two gaps with repercussions for understanding EU public opinion dynamics. First, between Eurosceptic policy elites’ softened policy stances on exit and their supporters’ steadfast sense that further departures remain likely. Second, between Europhiles’ scepticism of Brexit and a residual lack of confidence in EU cohesion.
Brexit • European Union • Public Opinion • Euroscepticism • Motivated Reasoning - J. Ganderson, Z. Truchlewski and W. Schelkle (2021) ‘Buying Time for Democracies? European Union Emergency Politics in the Time of COVID-19’, West European Politics (44:5-6), pp. 1353-1375. DOI
Abstract
Successive crises in the European Union have led critics to identify a pervasive tendency to emergency politics, where democratic deliberation gives way to policy decisions forced through by executive authority. By contrast, in this article it is argued that crises may stimulate deliberation and compromise, even when preceded by open conflict and an evident collective action failure. Drawing on a new dataset of 1759 policy-related actions covering the EU and its member states’ responses to COVID-19 between March and July 2020, the timing, sequencing and origins of policy claims and steps are traced. Both urgent epidemiological responses are found, where emergency measures were in evidence; and responses to anticipated economic challenges that had to overcome disagreement concerning necessary institutional reforms. The findings depict a multifaceted crisis response. The European Commission acted swiftly but also bought time for member state governments to deliberate. This casts doubt on the many-crises-one-script account of EU emergency politics.
Covid-19 • Crisis Politics • Emergency Politics • EU Politics • Policy Coding - J. Ganderson (2020) ‘To Change Banks or Bankers? – The Politics of Bank Structural Regulation in the UK and the Netherlands’, Business & Politics (22:1), pp. 196-223. DOI
Abstract
After the subprime financial crisis, the countries who were worst affected set about reforming legacy financial regulations. Given multiple similarities in the way they experienced the crisis and the similar complexions of their post-crisis economies and politics, the contrast between the UK and the Netherlands' approaches to breaking up their largest banks presents a puzzle for prevailing theories in the politics of financial regulation. Both countries explored a range of reform options using similar expert committees, but while UK policymakers determined that commercial and investment operations should be ring-fenced in the largest British banks, the Dutch reform program centered on the banks’ own recommendations to change banking culture from the bottom up by developing a code of conduct and banker's oath. The paper traces this divergence to two related effects produced by the countries’ contrasting majoritarian and consensus party systems: power sharing and coalition formation. Under conditions of high issue salience, both worked to encourage British policymakers to prioritize reform, while in the Netherlands each factor reduced party political responsiveness and de-emphasized alternatives to the banks’ own reform prescriptions. The paper ultimately suggests that institutional democratic variables are worthy of greater recognition among scholars of business power and financial regulation.
Bank Structural Reform • Financial Regulation • Independent Commission on Banking • Party Systems • Business Power - J. Ganderson, L. Seelkopf, P. Genschel, J. Limberg, Y. Mnaili, E. Ehmanis (2019) ‘The Rise of Modern Taxation: A New Comprehensive Dataset of Tax Introductions Worldwide’, Review of International Organizations (16), pp. 239-263. DOI
Abstract
This article describes the new Tax Introduction Dataset (TID). Listing the year and the mode of the first permanent introduction of six major taxes (inheritance tax, personal income tax, corporate income tax, social security contributions, general sales tax and value added tax) in 220 countries, 1750–2018, TID is the most comprehensive dataset of its kind. The comprehensiveness of our measure is of critical value to empirical work on the causes of tax innovation and its consequences for state, society and economy. In this paper, we explain the selection of our tax sample and the structure of the dataset, descriptively map temporal and regional patterns of tax introductions around the world, and draw on TID to investigate associations between tax introductions and economic development, war, and democratization.
Democratization • Economic Development • Fiscal Sociology • Globalization • State Building • Tax Introduction Dataset
Chapters in Edited Volumes
- J. Ganderson and J. Limberg (2021) ‘The Rise of General Consumption Taxes’ in P. Genschel and L. Seelkopf (Eds.) Global Taxation: How Modern Taxes Conquered the World, Oxford: UOP. pp. 199-222. DOI
- J. Ganderson (2021) ‘Fighting for Fintech: Competition, Regulation and Accountability in a Europe of Financial Innovation’ in A. Héritier and J. Karremans (Eds). Regulating Finance in Europe: Policy effects and Political Accountability, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. pp. DOI
- J. Ganderson, A Héritier and A. Smolenska (2020) ‘The Impacts of Technological Innovation on Regulatory Structure: Fintech in post-crisis Europe’. Chapter, in M. Schoeller and A. Héritier (Eds.) Governing Finance in Europe: A Centralization of Rulemaking?, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. pp. 164-189. DOI
Thesis/Reports
