The European Debt Crisis : Incremental Reform, Austerity and Institutional Failure

This paper focuses on the way a crisis needs an institutional actor and champion. Through painfully slow intervention and muddling through, the ECB created new policy space for a European financial and banking system that was on the point of collapse. However the institutional commitment to austerity and deep cuts to state spending has pushed the goal of a stronger federal union further away than ever. The paper examines the strengths and limitations of institutional ‘ad hocery' of making policy on the go. It also has a comparative examination of the Canadian experience with policy ad hocery through during Canada's long running constitutional wars between 1960 to 2000. In the end Ottawa's strategy left the Canadian federal union decentralized and a much more fragile. It makes the case that despite the accomplishment of keeping European capitalism afloat with massive and repeated bailouts of public money, the worst-case scenario facing the Euro-zone of some kind of collapse in the near future is still on the table