TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Schmidt, Vivien A. ED - Schmidt, Vivien A. ED - Thatcher, Mark T1 - The state: The bête noire of neo-liberalism or its greatest conquest? T2 - Resilient Liberalism in Europe's Political Economy N2 - 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 bête 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). Y1 - 2013 SN - 9781139857086 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139857086 SP - 112 EP - 142 PB - Cambridge University Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia ED - Mikler, John T1 - Global Companies as Agenda Setters in the World Trade Organization T2 - The Handbook of Global Companies N2 - 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. Y1 - 2013 SN - 9781118326152 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118326152 SP - 257 EP - 271 PB - John Wiley and Sons, Ltd CY - Chichester ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia T1 - Open skies, closed markets: Future games in the negotiation of international air transport JF - Review of International Political Economy N2 - 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. KW - International aviation KW - European Union KW - United States KW - multi-level games KW - historical institutionalism Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2011.633484 VL - 19 IS - 5 SP - 918 EP - 941 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Streeck, Wolfgang A1 - Steiner, Philippe A1 - Fourcade, Marion T1 - Moral categories in the financial crisis JF - Socio-Economic Review N2 - 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. KW - financial crisis KW - ethics KW - inequality KW - moral norms KW - political economy Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwt012 VL - 11 IS - 3 SP - 601 EP - 627 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Jacquot, Sophie T1 - Using Europe: Strategic action in multi-level politics JF - Comparative European Politics N2 - 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. Y1 - 2010 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2010.7 VL - 8 IS - 1 SP - 110 EP - 126 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Grossman, Emiliano T1 - The French debate over the Bolkestein directive JF - Comparative European Politics N2 - 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. KW - service liberalization KW - France KW - Euroscepticism KW - constitutional treaty KW - EU referendum Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2010.19 VL - 9 IS - 3 SP - 344 EP - 366 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia T1 - Lobbying under Pressure: The Effect of Salience on European Union Hedge Fund Regulation JF - Journal of Common Market Studies N2 - 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. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2012.02314.x VL - 51 IS - 3 SP - 555 EP - 572 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Clift, Ben T1 - Economic patriotism: reinventing control over open markets JF - Journal of European Public Policy N2 - We analyse how tensions between international market integration and spatially limited political mandates have led to the phenomenon of economic patriotism. As discrimination in favour of insiders, economic patriotism goes beyond economic nationalism and can include territorial allegiances at the supranational or the local level. We show how this prism helps to understand the evolution of political intervention in open economies and present the ambition of this collection. KW - Economic nationalism KW - European market integration KW - industrial policy KW - intervention KW - mercantilism Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2011.638117 VL - 19 IS - 3 SP - 307 EP - 323 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia ED - Abdelal, Rawi ED - Blyth, Mark ED - Parsons, Craig T1 - Firm Interests in Uncertain Times: Business Lobbying in Multilateral Service Liberalization T2 - Constructing the International Economy N2 - Abstract : Many observers agree that the multilateral liberalization of service trade was a response to the intense lobbying efforts of financial service companies. In contrast, many of the firms that were affected by the General Agreement on the Trade of Services did not know where their interests lay in the multilateral negotiations and only began to work with their governments very late in the process. This paper shows that the preference evolution of service companies - both the first movers and the late comers - cannot be explained with reference to material rationality only. As a radically new trade issue, service trade was a realm of great uncertainty for business and they relied on social devices rather than pure economic calculations to determine how to position themselves on liberalization. In times of uncertainty, the differential logic of social embeddedness and the institutional constraints of a firm's national setting are therefore a more appropriate indicator for business demands than material incentives arising from the global economy. Y1 - 2010 UR - https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801475887/constructing-the-international-economy/#bookTabs=1 SN - 9780801475887 SP - 137 EP - 154 PB - Cornell University Press CY - New York ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia T1 - Politics in the Interest of Capital. A Not-So-Organized Combat. T2 - MaxPo Discussion Paper N2 - The rise in inequality has been explained with reference to organized groups and the lobbying of the financial sector. This article argues that the image of politics as organized combat is contradicted by empirical evidence on lobbying in the United States, and does not travel well to Europe. The power of finance does not operate through organized political influence. Rather, politics in the interest of capital unfolds as a structural feature of advanced economies over time. Tellingly, at the height of the financial crisis, one of the most promising strategies of institutions seeking government support was not organizing for combat, but collective inaction. Our challenge, then, is to explain how the power of finance has built up and is playing out in creating inequality. A more structural, less agency-focused perspective highlights how the rise of finance has been supported by actors that few would accuse of being finance-friendly, such as the European center-left parties and consumers. Reconceptualizing the power of finance has important implications for political solutions to rising inequality. Y1 - 2015 UR - http://www.maxpo.eu/pub/maxpo_dp/maxpodp15-2.pdf VL - 15 IS - 2 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Alemanno, Alberto A1 - Bradford, Anu A1 - et al., T1 - European Strategic Autonomy in 2020 N2 - When Ursula von der Leyen spoke about a “Geopolitical Commission” when she took office in 2019, the disruption brought about by the year 2020 could not quite be predicted. Faced with the world’s upheavals, caught up in between Sino-American rivalry, it is essential to assess and question the Union’s position in the world and its perspectives for the future. At the heart of this endeavour is a debate on the meaning of European strategic autonomy. As part of the Groupe d’études géopolitiques’ publications, following a major interview with the French President and a long analysis written by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, we have asked some twenty scholars, observers and experts from multiple horizons, nationalities and fields of expertise to position themselves on a scale from 0 (“the EU has become less strategically autonomous”) to 5 (“the EU has become more strategically autonomous”), explaining their mark with a short text Y1 - 2020 UR - https://geopolitique.eu/en/2020/12/29/european-strategic-autonomy-in-2020/ VL - 10 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Clift, Ben ED - Morgan, Glenn ED - Whitley, Richard T1 - The Revival of Economic Patriotism T2 - Capitalisms and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century N2 - In the late twentieth century, the rise of neo-liberal economics appeared to some to signal the withdrawal of the nation state from key areas of economic life in the industrialized world. However, this was always an illusion. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated clearly that states remain the actor of last resort when the business system begins to collapse. International efforts at coordination have been dwarfed by the fiscal policies of states to stimulate their economies. These revival efforts reveal the underlying differences which remain between states and how economic policy-making in crisis responds most directly to threats to the national system. This chapter examines these processes and how they can be combined with continued commitment to a neo-liberal global order and efforts at global coordination. Y1 - 2012 SN - 9780199694761 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199694761.001.0001 SP - 70 EP - 89 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Dewey, Matías A1 - Ronconi, Lucas T1 - The Political Economy of Law Enforcement T2 - MaxPo Discussion Paper N2 - The legal order is the legitimate foundation of liberal democracy. Its incomplete enforcement of the law can therefore appear dysfunctional, reflecting weak institutions, state capture, and corrupt practices. This paper casts doubt on such categorical assessments by systematically examining the reasons for and intentions behind incomplete enforcement. It argues that law enforcement is part of the political process that is deeply affected by the constellation of actors concerned. Choices over law enforcement produce social order that is analytically distinct from the production of legal norms and their formal implementation. By analyzing different types of partial enforcement, its rationales, and intended effects, we propose an approach that studies law enforcement as an integral part of public policy analysis and of the study of socioeconomic orders. Y1 - 2021 UR - http://www.maxpo.eu/pub/maxpo_dp/maxpodp21-1.pdf VL - 21 IS - 1 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia ED - Andersson, Jenny ED - Godechat, Olivier T1 - On the Role of Social Sciences: What Crisis Are We Facing? T2 - Destabilizing Orders – Understanding the Consequences of Neoliberalism. Proceedings of the MaxPo Fifth-Anniversary Conference. Paris, January 12–13, 2018. MaxPo Discussion Paper. Y1 - 2018 UR - https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2591613_7/component/file_2598933/content VL - 18 IS - 1 SP - 105 EP - 107 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia T1 - Who scripts European trade policy? Business–government relations in the EU-Canada partnership negotiations T2 - Europe, Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Y1 - 2011 UR - https://www.routledge.com/Europe-Canada-and-the-Comprehensive-Economic-and-Trade-Agreement/Hubner/p/book/9781138215269 SN - 9781138215269 SP - 41 EP - 58 PB - Routledge CY - London ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia ED - Mayntz, Renate T1 - The Defense of Economic Interests in the European Union: The Case of Hedge Fund Regulation T2 - Crisis and Control: Institutional Change in Financial Market Regulation Y1 - 2012 UR - https://www.mpifg.de/pu/books_wz/2012/wz_rm_2012-2 SN - 978-3-593-39505-0 SP - 197 EP - 212 PB - Campus Verlag CY - Frankfurt a.M. ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Woll, Cornelia ED - Dür, Andreas ED - Zimmermann, Hubert T1 - EU Foreign Economic Policies: autonomy of EU institutions T2 - Key Controversies in European Integration Y1 - 2012 SN - 9781137006141 SP - 184 EP - 189 PB - Palgrave CY - London ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia T1 - Beyond Ideological Battles: A Strategic Analysis of Hedge Fund Regulation in Europe T2 - Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po N2 - The highly politicized debate about the recent Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM) Directive of the European Union led many observers to suspect an ideological battle between countries seeking to impose transnational regulation on financial service industries such as hedge funds and liberal market economies insisting on the benefits of market discipline in order to protect their financial centers. The battle that appeared to particularly pit France against the United Kingdom can thus be interpreted as an example of a regulatory paradigm shift in the aftermath of the crisis. This article cautions against such an ideas-centered account of financial regulation and points to the economic interests that drove the French and German agendas. However, contrary to the assumptions of traditional political economy approaches, national preferences were not simply defined by the aggregate of a country’s economic interests. Rather, industry success in shaping government positions on alternative investment regulation crucially depended on how a given industry fit into the government’s overarching geo-political agenda. By highlighting this feedback loop between government strategy and industry lobbying, the paper proposes a strategic analysis of financial regulation, as opposed to accounts that consider positions to be pre-determined by ideas or socioeconomic structures. N2 - La polémique autour de la directive européenne sur les fonds d’investissement alternatif (AIFM) est souvent citée comme exemple d’une bataille idéologique. D’un côté, on trouve les pays membre qui insistent sur une réglementation accrue des marchés financiers, en particulier la France, de l’autre côté, ceux qui souhaitent préserver le marché libre, notamment le Royaume Uni. Nous montrons les limites des récits qui s’intéressent uniquement aux paradigmes de la réglementation financière après la crise et insistons sur les intérêts économiques derrière les différentes positions. En revanche, les positions nationales ne doivent pas être comprises comme simple agrégat des positions de l’industrie financière d’un pays. Le succès de leur lobbying dépend en très grande partie de la compatibilité des demandes particulières avec la stratégie géopolitique du gouvernement. L’objectif de l’article est ainsi de tracer les boucles de rétroaction entre les stratégies des gouvernements et le lobbying de l’industrie financière d’un pays, afin de proposer une analyse stratégique de la négociation intergouvernementale. Y1 - 2011 UR - https://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09hae2n8o0n/resources/beyond-ideological-battles-a-strategic-analysis-of-hedge-fund-regulation-in-europe1.pdf VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Jacquot, Sophie T1 - Action publique Européenne : les acteurs stratégiques face a l'Europe T1 - A Sociological Perspective on Strategic Action in European Integration JF - Politique européenne N2 - Cet article s'intéresse à l'influence de la sociologie dans l'analyse de l'action publique européenne. Nous revenons notamment sur la notion "d'usage" que nous avons développée auparavant et plaidons pour une prise en compte plus systématique de l'action stratégique dans l'analyse des transformations européennes. Nous analysons les évolutions récentes des études européennes vers une prise en compte plus systématique de l'imbrication sociale des acteurs, ce qui permet d'étudier leur rationalité sans tomber dans certains pièges des approches du choix rationnel trop réductrices. L'analyse de l'action intentionnée permet de mettre en lumière trois dimensions spécifiques des transformations européennes : (1) les processus non contraignants et informels, (2) les effets de la circulation des acteurs entre les différents niveaux du système européen, et (3) l’importance des coalitions ambiguës et parfois inattendues qui se forment, souvent malgré des divergences profondes sur les objectifs à atteindre. N2 - Many have noted that European integration theory has moved beyond the theoretical divide between inter-governmentalists and neo-functionalists that marked the 1990s. While some authors simply abandoned theoretical frameworks to concentrate on empirical puzzles, others adopted positions stemming from international relations theory or comparative political science. The most important paradigmatic divide in European Union studies now seems to be between rationalists and constructivists, or rational choice institutionalists and more sociological perspectives on the study of European integration that focus on the role of ideas and representation in the evolution of institutional settings. This paper surveys recent studies that have adopted the latter perspective while at the same time concentrating on the strategic decision making of intentional actors at the center of rational choice approaches. By studying the contributions of such a middle-ground perspective to the study of Europeanization in particular, we argue against a dichotomy between rational and constructivist approaches and highlight the centrality of fluid coalition patterns and power relationships in the study of the European Union. Y1 - 2008 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3917/poeu.025.0161 VL - 25 IS - 2 SP - 161 EP - 192 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Woll, Cornelia A1 - Grossman, Emiliano T1 - Saving the Banks: The Political Economy of Bailouts T2 - Open Forum CES Paper Series N2 - How much leeway did governments have in designing bank bailouts and deciding on the height of intervention during the 2007-2009 financial crisis? This paper analyzes comparatively what explains government responses to banking crises. Why does the type of intervention during financial crises vary to such a great extent across countries? 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 have strong interbank ties and collective negotiation capacity were able to develop solutions with a greater burden sharing from private institutions. Y1 - 2012 UR - https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_1477827_2/component/file_1477825/content VL - 8 ER -