Power and Changing Modes of Governance in the Euro Crisis

Which European Union actors are most powerful in the governance of the euro crisis? The euro crisis has reignited the classic debate between intergovernmentalists, who tend to stress the coercive power of dominant member states in the European Council, and supranationalists, who maintain that through the use of institutional power, the Commission, and the European Central Bank turned out the “winners” of the crisis. This article argues that euro crisis governance is best understood not just in terms of one form of power but instead as evolving through different constellations of coercive, institutional, and ideational power that favored different EU actors over the course of the crisis, from the initial fast-burning phase (2010–2012), where the coercive and ideational power of Northern European member states in the European Council was strongest, to the slow-burning phase (2012–2016), when greater influence was afforded supranational actors through the use of ideational and institutional power.