The Politics of Bad Options

In a new book by Stefanie Walter, Ari Ray, and Nils Redeker, The Politics of Bad Options: Why the Eurozone's Problems Have Been So Hard to Resolve (Oxford University Press 2020), the authors argue that the costs of resolution in the Eurozone crisis were borne almost exclusively by indebted deficit countries, whereas the creditor-surplus states did little to share the burden. While debtor states were forced to implement austerity measures and structural reforms that were almost unprecedented in scale, surplus countries—their argument goes—did not significantly adjust their economic policies. * Nils Karlson, Professor of Political Science and President of the Ratio Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, The Library of Economics and Liberty * The Euro crisis was a defining moment in European integration that continues to shape the trajectory of the EU. In this theoretically innovative and empirically rigorous book, Walter, Ray, and Redeker present new insights into the political dynamics and constraints shaping the policy responses to the Euro crisis. Importantly, they study all the available options and trade-offs to explain why specific policies were chosen. The book is an invaluable contribution to understanding the politics of the Euro crisis. * Sara Hobolt, LSE * The Eurozone crisis has been the greatest failure in the history of European integration. The European Union's member states were patently unable to negotiate their way to an economically, politically, and socially sensible resolution of the crisis. The Politics of Bad Options explains the course and results of the Eurozone crisis with theoretical and empirical clarity. Walter, Ray, and Redeker analyze the sources of the conflicts between creditor/surplus and debtor/deficit countries. They explain the domestic political economies of debtor and creditor nations, and the disastrous course of their attempts to resolve the crisis. The Politics of Bad Options is required reading for anyone interested in the European Union, international debt, and more broadly and comparative and international political economy. * Jeffry Frieden, Harvard University * I found this is an exciting and very thought provoking book, making me think both more and differently about the Eurozone's crises. First, thinking seriously about the surplus countries (after being so focussed on the pathologies of Southern Europe) is a great and illuminating discipline. Second, and based on distributional conflicts, it provides a carefully thought out and original analytic framework. And third it is seriously - hence really usefully - comprehensive and reliable. Based on Walter's major research programme, it represents the high level of intellectual results which can come from intense and coordinated collaboration. * David Soskice, LSE *