@book{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {The Power of Inaction: Bank Bailouts in Comparison}, publisher = {Cornell University Press}, isbn = {978-0-8014-7115-5}, publisher = {Hertie School}, abstract = {Bank bailouts in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the Great Recession brought into sharp relief the power that the global financial sector holds over national politics, and provoked widespread public outrage. In The Power of Inaction, Cornelia Woll details the varying relationships between financial institutions and national governments by comparing national bank rescue schemes in the United States and Europe. Woll starts with a broad overview of bank bailouts in more than twenty countries. Using extensive interviews conducted with bankers, lawmakers, and other key players, she then examines three pairs of countries where similar outcomes might be expected: the United States and United Kingdom, France and Germany, Ireland and Denmark. She finds, however, substantial variation within these pairs. In some cases the financial sector is intimately involved in the design of bailout packages; elsewhere it chooses to remain at arm's length. Such differences are often ascribed to one of two conditions: either the state is strong and can impose terms, or the state is weak and corrupted by industry lobbying. Woll presents a third option, where the inaction of the financial sector critically shapes the design of bailout packages in favor of the industry. She demonstrates that financial institutions were most powerful in those settings where they could avoid a joint response and force national policymakers to deal with banks on a piecemeal basis. The power to remain collectively inactive, she argues, has had important consequences for bailout arrangements and ultimately affected how the public and private sectors have shared the cost burden of these massive policy decisions.}, language = {en} } @article{WollJacquot, author = {Woll, Cornelia and Jacquot, Sophie}, title = {Usage of European Integration - Europeanisation from a Sociological Perspective}, series = {European Integration online Papers (EIoP)}, volume = {7}, journal = {European Integration online Papers (EIoP)}, number = {12}, abstract = {The effect of European integration on its member states constitutes the new research agenda within the study of European integration. Marked by the "the institutionalist turn" of Anglo-Saxon political sciences, the most dominant theories on europeanisation focus on structural arrangements. Institutional incompatibility between the European and the national level, so the hypothesis, creates pressures for change. Actors are often only considered as mediators of these pressures. Consequentially, few approaches try to explain adaptational change initiated by policy actors in the absence of institutional pressures. Using a political sociology approach, the central concern of this paper is to insist on the political discretion of national actors in translation of European requirements. We believe that understanding not only "adaptation to" but also "usage of" the process of European integration is important to understanding the transformation of European member states. By insisting on usage, we aim at analysing both the strategic interaction of rational actors with the European institutions and the more sociological effect of "usage" - as "daily practice" - on the interest and identities of the actors.}, language = {en} } @misc{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Offshore Finance and State Power. By Andrea Binder. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2023. 240p.}, series = {Perspectives on Politics}, volume = {23}, journal = {Perspectives on Politics}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press (CUP)}, doi = {10.1017/S153759272510159X}, pages = {1171 -- 1172}, language = {en} } @book{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Firm Interests: How Governments Shape Business Lobbying on Global Trade}, publisher = {Cornell University Press}, isbn = {9780801446092}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {208}, abstract = {Firms are central to trade policy-making. Some analysts even suggest that they dictate policy on the basis of their material interests. Cornelia Woll counters these assumptions, arguing that firms do not always know what they want. To be sure, firms lobby hard to attain a desired policy once they have defined their goals. Yet material factors are insufficient to account for these preferences. The ways in which firms are embedded in political settings are much more decisive. Woll demonstrates her case by analyzing the surprising evolution of support from large firms for liberalization in telecommunications and international air transport in the United States and Europe. Within less than a decade, former monopolies with important home markets abandoned their earlier calls for subsidies and protectionism and joined competitive multinationals in the demand for global markets. By comparing the complex evolution of firm preferences across sectors and countries, Woll shows that firms may influence policy outcomes, but policies and politics in turn influence business demands. This is particularly true in the European Union, where the constraints of multilevel decision-making encourage firms to pay lip service to liberalization if they want to maintain good working relations with supranational officials. In the United States, firms adjust their sectoral demands to fit the government's agenda. In both contexts, the interaction between government and firm representatives affects not only the strategy but also the content of business lobbying on global trade.}, language = {en} } @misc{CliftWoll, author = {Clift, Ben and Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Economic Patriotism in Open Economies}, editor = {Clift, Ben and Woll, Cornelia}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, isbn = {9780415624749}, pages = {160}, abstract = {The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that governments continuously seek to steer their economies rather than leaving them to free markets. Despite the ambitions of international economic cooperation, such interventionism is decidedly local. Some politicians even proudly evoke "economic patriotism" to justify their choices. This volume links such populism to a specific set of tensions the paradox of neo-liberal democracy and argues that the phenomenon is ubiquitous. The mandate of politicians is to defend the economic interests of their constituents under conditions where large parts of economic governance are no longer exclusively within their control. Economic patriotism is one possible reaction to this tension. As old-style industrial policy and interventionism gained a bad reputation, governments had to become creative to assure traditional economic policy objectives with new means. However, economic patriotism is more than just a fashionable word or a fig leaf for protectionism. This volume employs the term to signal two distinctions: the diversity of policy content and the multiplicity of territorial units it can refer to. Comparing economic interventionism across countries and sectors, it becomes clear that economic liberalism will always be accompanied by counter-movements that appeal to territorial images. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.}, language = {en} } @article{EmilianoWoll, author = {Emiliano, Grossman and Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Saving the Banks: The Political Economy of Bailouts}, series = {Comparative Political Studies}, volume = {47}, journal = {Comparative Political Studies}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1177/0010414013488540}, pages = {574 -- 600}, abstract = {How much leeway did governments have in designing bank bailouts and deciding on the height of intervention during the 2007-2009 financial crisis? By analyzing the variety of bailouts in Europe and North America, we will show that the strategies governments use to cope with the instability of financial markets does not depend on economic conditions alone. Rather, they take root in the institutional and political setting of each country and vary in particular according to the different types of business-government relations banks were able to entertain with public decision makers. Still, "crony capitalism" accounts overstate the role of bank lobbying. With four case studies of the Irish, Danish, British, and French bank bailout, we show that countries with close one-on-one relationships between policy makers and bank management tended to develop unbalanced bailout packages, while countries where banks negotiated collectively developed solutions with a greater burden-sharing from private institutions.}, language = {en} } @article{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Bank Rescue Schemes in Continental Europe: The Power of Collective Inaction}, series = {Government and Opposition}, volume = {49}, journal = {Government and Opposition}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1017/gov.2014.5}, pages = {426 -- 451}, abstract = {Comparing bank rescue schemes in France and Germany during the banking crisis of 2008-9, this article argues that collective inaction is a little-studied aspect in the exercise of power in business-government relations. Contrary to studies that focus on lobbying, structural power or the influence of beliefs, the comparison highlights that governments depend on contributions from the financial industry during crisis management. In the negotiations to design bank support schemes, some countries, such as France, succeeded in engaging their financial sector collectively. Such public-private burden-sharing arrangements alleviate the public budget and increase mutual surveillance between banks during government support. In other countries, such as Germany, a collectively organized industry response failed, which forced the government to design an entirely public support scheme. The German government reacted to this perceived imbalance by imposing tighter banking regulation to avoid a repetition of the impotence it experienced in 2008.}, language = {en} } @incollection{ThatcherWoll, author = {Thatcher, Mark and Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Evolutionary Dynamics in Internal Market Regulation in the European Union}, series = {The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism}, editor = {Fioretos, Orfeo and Falleti, Tulia G. and Sheingate, Adam}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {9780199662814}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199662814.013.30}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {504 -- 516}, abstract = {The chapter shows how European internal market regulation expanded and was transformed from a limited and often non-binding set of policies to an integrated and wide-ranging framework. Incremental but profound change was possible because critical junctures, in particular judgments by the European Court of Justice, allowed the European Commission and its allies to advance new policy proposals with new default positions. This affected the preferences of major member states, created new coalitions, and also led to the emergence of new actors. Feedback loops reinforced the orientation of previous agreements and created changes that most observers would have qualified as impossible three or four decades earlier.}, language = {en} } @article{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Politics in the Interest of Capital: A Not-So-Organized Combat}, series = {Politics \& Society}, volume = {44}, journal = {Politics \& Society}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1177/0032329216655318}, pages = {373 -- 391}, abstract = {In recent debates about inequality, many have pointed to the predominant position of the finance. This article highlights that structural power, not lobbying resources, are key to explaining variations across countries. It examines finance-government negotiations over national bank rescue schemes during the recent financial crisis. Given the structural power of finance, the variation in bank bailouts across countries cannot be explained by lobbying differences. Instead of observing organized interest intermediation, we can see that disorganization was crucial for the financial industry to get off the hook and let the government carry the burden of stabilizing the economy. Put differently, structural power is strongest when finance remains collectively inactive. In contrast to traditional accounts of the lobbying influence of finance, the comparison highlights that the lack of organization can have crucial redistributive consequences.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {State Action in Financial Times}, series = {Reconfiguring European States in Crisis}, booktitle = {Reconfiguring European States in Crisis}, editor = {King, Desmond and Le Gal{\`e}s, Patrick}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {9780198793373}, doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198793373.003.0010}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {201 -- 214}, abstract = {The financial crisis revealed the vulnerability of states with financialized economies, but also the extraordinary measures they had recourse to in order to reign in market forces. This chapter argues that this paradox is based on another contradiction: the ambiguity of government-finance relations. While financial institutions are considered to be the culprits of the recent crisis, they were also necessary to support government action and enable a quick recovery. Undoing the ties between banks and states is thus not only a response to conflicts of interests. Uncoupling banks from states through European financial integration also contains risks for future crisis management.}, language = {en} } @misc{JacquotWoll, author = {Jacquot, Sophie and Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Les usages de l'Europe : acteurs et transformations europ{\´e}ennes}, editor = {Jacquot, Sophie and Woll, Cornelia}, publisher = {L'Harmattan}, address = {Paris}, isbn = {9782747564991}, pages = {318}, abstract = {Comment s'impose l'Europe? Par sa production l{\´e}gislative et politique uniquement ou {\´e}galement gr{\^a}ce aux divers usages qui en sont faits? Ce livre s'attache {\`a} analyser qui s'implique dans l'int{\´e}gration europ{\´e}enne, comment et dans quels buts. En mettant en {\´e}vidence le r{\^o}le des acteurs en tant que vecteurs de transformations et en d{\´e}veloppant la notion d'usages de l'Europe, ce travail collectif entend apporter une perspective suppl{\´e}mentaire {\`a} l'agenda des recherches sur l'europ{\´e}anisation et l'impact de l'int{\´e}gration europ{\´e}enne.}, language = {fr} } @article{JohnsonMuggeSeabrookeetal., author = {Johnson, Juliet and Mugge, Daniel and Seabrooke, Leonard and Woll, Cornelia and Grabel, Ilene and Gallagher, Kevin P.}, title = {The future of international political economy: Introduction to the 20th anniversary issue of RIPE}, series = {Review of International Political Economy}, volume = {20}, journal = {Review of International Political Economy}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1080/09692290.2013.835275}, pages = {1009 -- 1023}, language = {en} } @article{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {The brash and the soft-spoken: Lobbying styles in a transatlantic comparison}, series = {Interest Groups \& Advocacy}, volume = {1}, journal = {Interest Groups \& Advocacy}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1057/iga.2012.10}, pages = {193 -- 214}, abstract = {Lobbying on both sides of the Atlantic has experienced a considerable boom in the last 50 years and one could be led to believe that the two industries look increasingly alike. Lobbyists have become highly professionalized and master a multitude of venues and levels of political authority. Direct representation of companies or other stakeholders co-exists with associational representation in both Washington DC and Brussels, even though peak associations play a greater role in Europe. The use of some instruments is different, however, in particular financial contributions and legal tactics, which are central in the United States (US) and much less common in the European Union (EU). What is more, observers of lobbying in the US and the EU have noted the markedly different lobbying styles: frequently aggressive advocacy approach in the US and a more consensus-oriented informational lobbying in the EU. While US groups and lobbyists oftentimes defend their immediate interest by trying to exert pressure on public officials, EU representatives seem to be more soft-spoken in their approach and are said to work in a more constructive manner with bureaucratic and political representatives. After developing a description of what makes up the respective styles, this article discusses cultural and institutional explanations cited in the literature. Rather than seeing lobbying styles as culture traits, it discusses the institutional constraints affecting lobbying behavior. In particular, the passage rate of proposals, the fragmentation of public media, the electoral structure and the transparency of political negotiations create different incentive structures in the US and the EU. However, lobbying styles are more than the cumulative effect of these different elements. They are linked to the nature of the political system, of which the institutional constraints are a reflection. The US, a fully established federal system, relies on majority decision-making. This creates an adversarial culture and 'winner-takes-all-politics'. The EU, by contrast, functions as a complex inter-governmental system with a high degree of supranational centralization. The resulting tension between integration and inter-state bargaining creates a system that relies on consensus-building. In this context, the access of private actors to supranational institutions depends on their contribution to the creation of problem-solving policy approaches. As long as the EU has to rely on the acceptance of its policy outputs for its legitimacy, we are bound to find many individual mechanisms that will trigger a more soft-spoken lobbying style in the EU. The differences between the US and the EU styles will thus appear as instances of a particular political culture, even though they are based on a range of institutional mechanisms, which are in turn a consequence of the construction of the respective political system. In conclusion, the article discusses the implications of this distinction for understanding change over time.}, language = {en} } @incollection{WollSchmidt, author = {Woll, Cornelia and Schmidt, Vivien A.}, title = {The state: The b{\^e}te noire of neo-liberalism or its greatest conquest?}, series = {Resilient Liberalism in Europe's Political Economy}, booktitle = {Resilient Liberalism in Europe's Political Economy}, editor = {Schmidt, Vivien A. and Thatcher, Mark}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, address = {Cambridge}, isbn = {9781139857086}, doi = {10.1017/CBO9781139857086}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {112 -- 142}, abstract = {Neo-liberalism has had one central message for the state: scale back, cut back, cut out, transform. This brings to mind Winston Churchill's reply to an opponent who asked, 'How much is enough?' to Churchill's repeated push to spend increasingly more on defence in the 1930s. Churchill's rejoinder came in the form of a story about a Brazilian banker with whom he had just had lunch. The banker had received a cable informing him of the death of his mother-in-law and asking for instructions. He cabled back: 'embalm, cremate, bury at sea; leave nothing to chance'. This take on neo-liberalism - as burying the state - is certainly exaggerated because neo-liberalism comes in many different forms with many different policy applications. Only the recommendations of the most radical strands come close to the Brazilian banker's response to his mother-in-law's death. Yet the story as a metaphor for neo-liberal views of the state nonetheless somehow rings true. This is largely because neo-liberals have been more anti-state in their rhetoric than in their actions. The state has been neo-liberalism's b{\^e}te noire, as its main focus of attack, because neo-liberals - whatever their differences - have viewed the state as consistently doing too much in the wrong ways with the worst consequences not only for the markets but also for democracy, by endangering individual freedom through its interventions. As a provider of public goods, the state had to be scaled back to leave room for the market, which would assure more efficiency. However, the state has also been neo-liberalism's greatest conquest, as its main locus of action, because it has been primarily through the state that neo-liberals have been able to realize their vision(s).}, language = {en} } @incollection{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Global Companies as Agenda Setters in the World Trade Organization}, series = {The Handbook of Global Companies}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Global Companies}, editor = {Mikler, John}, publisher = {John Wiley and Sons, Ltd}, address = {Chichester}, isbn = {9781118326152}, doi = {10.1002/9781118326152}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {257 -- 271}, abstract = {This chapter examines business lobbying at the WTO. It argues that the role of companies in multilateral trade is tightly linked to the evolution of the trading system, with the most decisive influence during the creation of the WTO institutions. In an initial phase, business lobbying concentrated on tariff barriers. As the GATT expanded its scope during the Uruguay Round, large US companies became very active participants and crucially shaped the agenda, in particular with respect to service trade and intellectual property rights. In other areas, however, active lobbying was less effective, most notably investment protection and textiles. With the establishment of the WTO, lobbying has begun to partially shift to the supranational level. Some relationships exist between the WTO secretariat and companies, but the most important new pillar of political activity relates to dispute settlement. At the same time, the WTO secretariat tries to reach out to a more diverse set of stakeholders. In many ways, the influence of global companies on WTO affairs is much more indirect today than it was during its creation.}, language = {en} } @article{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Open skies, closed markets: Future games in the negotiation of international air transport}, series = {Review of International Political Economy}, volume = {19}, journal = {Review of International Political Economy}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1080/09692290.2011.633484}, pages = {918 -- 941}, abstract = {How can we explain an international agreement that appears to run counter to the declared objectives of one of the key players? This article examines the US-EU Open Skies agreement signed in 2007 and asks why Europeans accepted the agreement after having rejected a comparable version three years earlier. Theoretical approaches that explain time inconsistency in international negotiations tend to focus on reasons why states can be constrained to accept suboptimal solutions. In multi-level bargaining, principal-agent and bureaucratization theories focus on loss of control and constructivists suggest that governments can become trapped in rhetoric. This article shows that paradoxical agreements can be voluntary and explains them by showing the rationale behind multi-games that include ambiguity about the future. In particular, increasing the flexibility of the agreement allowed negotiators to escape present-day constituent pressures by remaining ambiguous and betting on shifting coalitions.}, language = {en} } @article{WollStreeckSteineretal., author = {Woll, Cornelia and Streeck, Wolfgang and Steiner, Philippe and Fourcade, Marion}, title = {Moral categories in the financial crisis}, series = {Socio-Economic Review}, volume = {11}, journal = {Socio-Economic Review}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1093/ser/mwt012}, pages = {601 -- 627}, abstract = {Karl Marx observed long ago that all economic struggles invite moral struggles, or masquerade as such. The reverse may be true, too: deep moral-political conflicts may be waged through the manipulation of economic resources and the design of policy devices. Using the recent financial and Eurozone crises as empirical backgrounds, the short papers presented here by Philippe Steiner, Cornelia Woll, Wolfgang Streeck and Marion Fourcade propose four different perspectives on the play of moral judgments in the economy and call for a broader and more systematic scholarly engagement with this issue. Focusing on executive compensation, bank bailouts and the sovereign debt crisis, the discussion forum builds on a roundtable discussion held at the opening of the Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo) in Paris on November 29, 2012.}, language = {en} } @article{WollJacquot, author = {Woll, Cornelia and Jacquot, Sophie}, title = {Using Europe: Strategic action in multi-level politics}, series = {Comparative European Politics}, volume = {8}, journal = {Comparative European Politics}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1057/cep.2010.7}, pages = {110 -- 126}, abstract = {This article examines the importance of action-theoretical considerations in European studies. By outlining the notion of 'usage' of the European Union, we argue for a more systematically sociological consideration of strategic action in the study of European transformations. The recent turns towards constructivism and comparative political sociology allow analyzing the rationality of political actors without falling in the trap of overly reductionist rational choice assumptions. Concentrating on intentional action helps to reveal the importance of three aspects of the multi-level polity: (1) informal and non-constraining procedures; (2) the effects of ways in which actors move in between the different levels of the European political system; and (3) the ambiguous and often surprising coalitions that come together despite often considerable disagreement over their final goals.}, language = {en} } @article{WollGrossman, author = {Woll, Cornelia and Grossman, Emiliano}, title = {The French debate over the Bolkestein directive}, series = {Comparative European Politics}, volume = {9}, journal = {Comparative European Politics}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1057/cep.2010.19}, pages = {344 -- 366}, abstract = {Why did the services directive proposed by Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein lead to such virulent reactions in France? This article examines several potential explanations focusing on political economy, public opinion and the timing of events. While all of these elements contribute to the difficult political context, they are insufficient to explain the importance of the backlash against the directive in France. We therefore focus on party politics and argue that political elites had an interest in exploiting the directive in the context of a leadership crisis within the French socialist party. The case study bears lessons about the domestic potency of European policy issues: they can pose a real challenge to centrist parties, which have insufficiently addressed them in their party platforms.}, language = {en} } @article{Woll, author = {Woll, Cornelia}, title = {Lobbying under Pressure: The Effect of Salience on European Union Hedge Fund Regulation}, series = {Journal of Common Market Studies}, volume = {51}, journal = {Journal of Common Market Studies}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1111/j.1468-5965.2012.02314.x}, pages = {555 -- 572}, abstract = {The virulent European Union hedge fund debate led many observers to suspect a paradigmatic battle between liberal market economies and countries in favour of tighter regulation. By contrast, this article points to the economic interests that drove government agendas. However, national preferences were not defined by the aggregate of a country's economic interests, but by very specific stakeholders only, despite the existence of opponents with considerable resources. This article argues that the unequal success of financial lobbyists depended on how their demands fitted into the government's overarching negotiation strategy. The primacy of government objectives, in turn, resulted from the high saliency of financial regulation and hedge funds in particular.}, language = {en} }