Professor Theofanis Exadaktylos

During major national crises countries experience a ‘rally round the flag’ effect, where citizens, societal groups and politicians put aside mundane conflicts to stand united against a common threat. This shift to depoliticised policymaking was indeed observed in many European countries during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards. Subsequently it noted how politics involving COVID-19 were then (re)politicised, typically when lockdowns were lifted. This article sets out to explore the role of expertise in shaping policy responses during politicised/depoliticised processes. It offers a new typology, classifying four different ideal types of roles for experts as leading, antagonistic, managerial, and auxiliary. Using survey data from political science experts across 31 European countries it analyses knowledge exchanges at different stages throughout the pandemic, and finds a shift from normal policymaking conditions to conditions of politicisation/depoliticisation triggered by the pandemic. The findings demonstrate that the role of experts oscillates depending on the issue at hand and the way that either political actors utilise expertise to legitimise decisions or experts themselves turn into political actors within politicised decision environments. During the pandemic, a dramatic shift of the expert’s role occurred where even in countries whose experts previously had an auxiliary role, leading policy decisions became the norm.

Dataset 1: EU Democracy Support Actions  This dataset comprises democracy support actions conducted by the European Union towards the eastern neighbourhood countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) from 2010 to 2022. It includes projects that began earlier but continued or concluded after 2010. Data for 414 projects were collected from official documents, archives, and websites. The projects are categorized by individual countries and joint initiatives, offering detailed explanations of each project’s approach, objectives, domestic challenges, and opportunities. Dataset 2: EU Member States' Democracy Support Actions The dataset comprises democracy support actions conducted by seven EU member states towards the eastern neighbourhood countries from 2010 to 2022. It includes projects sourced from the OECD ODA databases (https://stats.oecd.org/qwids/) and covers the three largest projects by funding volume from the Government and Civil Society and Education sectors provided by seven EU member states: Germany, Sweden, Romania, Poland and the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) to six EU eastern neighbourhood countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

To what extent do public health crises create unity or polarise the public sphere? We investigate the development and dynamics of the public debate in Greece in light of Covid-19 to detect polarisation within the public sphere. We cover the first wave of the pandemic (March-May 2020), assessing reactions to government measures. In times of crises, the public looks for shortcuts in the media to assess the overabundance of information and digest the complexity of a crisis. Hence, people look at opinion leaders for guidance or to reinforce their own views. To assess the formation of the public debate and public responses we look at the cues the public receives via the media. Through a content analysis of editorial pieces in Greek newspapers we code references to government responses, the public response or the responsibility of fellow citizens, and the role of experts in providing professional advice to the government and guidance to society. The differential of positive and negative references reflects and determines a polarized debate that triggers public mobilization and engagement with specific repertoires of action. The findings assist in understanding the adherence to government guidance by the public and the passive reception or contestation of measures.

Why we need Environmental Social SciencesEnvironmental issues are ultimately social issues. They are caused by, understood by, and must be solved by, people as individuals, groups, communities, political and institutional systems.Securing the future of our planet and the wellbeing of humankind requires an in-depth understanding of the interdependent relationships between people and their social and natural environment. It requires knowledge and expertise of all environmental social sciences.Who is this document for?This document is for anyone with an interest in understanding and tackling people-environment relationships and environmental problems. This includes those working as, or with, environmental social scientists in academia, policy and practice, as well as scientists, knowledge brokers and policy makers and practitioners wishing to explicitly consider people-environment relationships in their work. This may include questions around climate change, net zero emissions, nature-climate relations, biodiversity, use of natural resources, consumer choices, as well as people’s relationships with their natural environment and non-human nature.Why this document is neededEnvironmental problems are deeply rooted in social structures and tackling these problems requires significant social transformation for which environmental social science (ESS) knowledge and expertise is essential. However, the potential value and role of environmental social sciences in research and policy and practice is not always clearly valued or understood. Overlooking the vital role of people and ESS insights contributes to inadequate environmental policy.Social sciences can sometimes be dismissed as common sense and is too often carried out by those without proper training and social science expertise is often under resourced. There is frequently a narrow understanding of the range of insights, tools and techniques that different environmental social sciences can offer.Knowledge of and requests for environmental social sciences (for instance by other researchers or decision makers) is often limited to research that studies how end users (consumers) respond to new technologies or environmental policies after the problems have been framed and the solutions have been designed. Knowledge of ESS research is often based on outdated ways of thinking, for example the knowledge-deficit model, which assumes that people lack the knowledge to “do the right thing”. There is also less emphasis on more inclusive methods that bring different groups into framing the problem. However, there is a huge variety of different types of environmental social sciences. Social science has played an important and significant role in research impact. Researchers have a vast array of methods and knowledge at their disposal that is critical to help understand and improve people-environment interactions and successful delivery of policy and practice. Environmental problems require insight and knowledge from a range of different disciplines, including social sciences. This document provides a synopsis of what environmental social science is, what it does and what it can offer to environmental research, policy and practice.

The Environmental Social Science kNowledge Exchange Map of Opportunities (ESS NEMO) is a package of systems maps and associated documentation that show the groups, organisations and individual actors that environmental social scientists could engage with in knowledge creation and/or exchange in the UK. ESS NEMO is a tool that, among other rationales, aims to promote greater collaboration and trust between environmental social scientists, and with other groups that may not traditionally be included in ESS activities. Environmental Social Science (ESS) is defined as the systematic study of people and their social and their non-human physical environment (their habitat) (Gatersleben et al., forthcoming). The information presented in ESS NEMO reflects the situation as of 10th July 2024. It is acknowledged that the landscape is dynamic, and changes frequently over time.

Political trust underpins a government’s track record of policy implementation, affecting steering, messages, resources and administrative preferences. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the main schools of thought on arguments linking different elements of political trust with mechanisms of policy implementation. To that end, the chapter specifies the ways trust contributes to the success or failure of the implementation of policy initiatives, reforms and processes. Lower levels of trust decrease administrative capacity and widen problem intractability increasing non-cooperation and coordination. Trust provides unity and solidarity, and either vertical or horizontal, it is directly linked to the confidence that citizens have in policy making actors and implementation institutions. Trust also affects compliance and behaviour therefore, directly linked to success or failure of implementation. The chapter reviews core elements of the concepts of political trust and policy implementation as well as the mechanisms connecting the two, providing key examples from the literature and empirical research. The chapter concludes by offering an outlook of future research agendas and ways to address policy implications and amend theories of policy implementation.

In this article, we statistically examine the effectiveness of non‐pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by the national governments of Greece and Cyprus during 2020 to (a) limit the spread of the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus, and (b) mitigate the economic fallout brought about by the Covid‐19 pandemic. Applying a modified health belief model, we hypothesize that behavioral outcomes at the policy level are a function of NPIs, perceived severity, and social context. We employ a Prais‐Winsten estimation in 2‐week averages and report panel‐corrected standard errors to find that NPIs have clear, yet differential, effects on public health and the economy in terms of statistical significance and time lags. The study provides a critical framework to inform future interventions during emerging pandemics.

This article examines the affective content of Greek media representations of the debt crisis, from 2009 to 2012. We analyze the content of opinion pieces from journalists, experts and public intellectuals published in Greek newspapers, and identify their affective content tone towards political actors and institutions. We focus on anger, fear and hope, and identify blame attribution frames, which underpin the public’s trust and confidence in domestic and EU institutions. This article contributes to the systematic understanding of the impact of the debt crisis as a traumatic event on public opinion, and considers its implications for attitudes towards European integration.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a ‘state of the art’ contribution about education in Greece, reviewing recent developments and reforms. As a policy area, education remains highly controversial in Greece from developing new curricula to the politicization of higher education. The chapter reflects on the pedagogical and political debates of the recent decades focusing on issues of policy implementation. It highlights the most recent round of reforms since 2011 including those resulting from the advent of Syriza to power, and looks at the period of the financial crisis to discuss issues of funding, the bailout agreements, and neoliberal ideas behind higher education. The chapter concludes by offering some suggestions for future research and sets out some of the respective challenges.

In this article, we contribute to the debate on research design and causal analysis in European integration studies by considering the sub-field of Europeanization. First, we examine the awareness of research design issues in the literature on Europeanization through a review of the debate on causality, concept formation and methods. Second, we analyse how much of the discussion of the trade-offs in causal analysis in mainstream political science has percolated into Europeanization studies. We therefore construct a sample of the Europeanization literature, comparing it to a control group of highly cited articles on European integration. This enables us to control if some patterns are specific to the Europeanization literature or reflect a more general trend in European integration. We then look at trade-offs in the Europeanization sample and in the control group. Our findings indicate that awareness of research design is still low. Europeanization articles differ from the control group in the focus on mechanisms (rather than variables) and the qualitative aspects of time in politics. Complex notions of causality prevail in Europeanization but not in the control group and the cause-of effects approach is preferred to effects-of-causes in the control group but not in Europeanization – in both cases, however, the difference is slight. We conclude by explaining differences and similarities and make proposals for future research.

Are EU institutions able to perform their preferred role within defence capability development? Highlighting increased demands for a stronger EU role in security, we explore how EU institutions have promoted their role within CSDP. Using role theory, we investigate the European Commission, the EDA, the EEAS and the European Parliament’s ability to promote pooled and shared defence resources in European capability development. We argue that this depends on the combination of the alignment of their original role treaty/design-based mandate with the role they perceive having; the role expectations of the big three Member States (Germany, France, UK); and the changing international environment, which may alter both role perceptions and role expectations. We find that the Commission and the EEAS have managed on occasion to promote pooled and shared defence resources overcoming Member State objections, showing autonomy in creating increased defence capability independently of MS leading to more integration within CSDP.

This chapter discusses the literature on national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the societal and political dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates intellectual engagement from disciplines beyond the health sciences and medicine. As fundamentally devastating as this pandemic has been, the universal character of this complex and multifaceted policy problem constitutes a natural experiment, a fruitful empirical field for research with the aim to understand and explain the variation of national responses to the pandemic. Divergence of varying degree was also observed in within-country, albeit federal, contexts. In the United States, the response to the pandemic was left entirely to the states. An analysis by Capano et al. finds that the diversity of responses concerns not only the kinds of policy instruments or the combination of instruments different countries used but also differences in the timing, sequence, and speed of adoption of measures as well as the stringency of these measures.

A taste of austerity, the limits of democracy and the overlooked, untold stories of a country in "crisis"

Europeanization is like one of those bumblebees that seem to defy the laws of aerodynamics, yet they fly. In 2002, Johan Olsen was lamenting that, several years after his seminal paper on Europeanization and Nation State Dynamics (Olsen, 1995), political scientists were still debating about concepts and definitions (Olsen, 2002). Each author, he argued, appeared to go on with their own concepts and frameworks in mind, and merrily ignore more substantive questions concerning how exactly Europeanization is changing politics and policy at the domestic level. Hussein Kassim (cited by Olsen, 2002) had concluded in 2000 that such an unwieldy field did not deserve too much attention, suggesting the futility of the whole exercise. In the end, Olsen reasoned, Europeanization may be nothing but an attention-directing device.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the policy puzzle and addressed broad theoretical concerns. It examines the interaction of national policy styles and political trust to explain differences across national contexts. While the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is highly salient because it affects all aspects of social life and possibly unique because it is rare, implications about responses inform a broader class of crises beyond this specific context. Pandemics create crises and add more elements to the mix. Pandemics create crises, and crises elicit policy responses of a fundamentally political character. Policy requires politics. Policies are ultimately made by politicians who occupy positions of formal authority. COVID-19 has created such a crisis, replete with social rituals, political power plays, and costly community responses. It cuts across policy sectors and social classes, providing a rare glimpse into extraordinary policymaking. 

During the recent European debt crisis, credit rating agencies (CRAs) and the ratings they were producing became a frequent bone of contention. We analyze which factors are considered by CRAs when they judge a state's credibility in implementing an announced austerity program. The results of a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of credit ratings show that implementation-related factors had a comparatively minor impact while the level of economic competitiveness of the evaluated country displayed high explanatory power. The findings highlight the desolate implications for less competitive countries that emanate from credit ratings and their influence on refinancing costs. While competitive states are deemed better able to generate future growth and therefore get positive evaluations, less competitive states cannot prevent (further) downgrades in the short- or middle-term by announcing austerity programs.

While national policy styles have (re)gained academic attention in recent comparative public policy work, the concept still needs a widely accepted operationalization that can allow the collection and analysis of data across contexts while steering away from construct validity threats. We build on Tosun and Howlett's (2022) work and employ a mixed-methods approach, which relies on exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. We put forth an operationalization, using Bertelsmann's Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) as proxies, that achieves conceptual clarity and distinctiveness, informational robustness, and statistical power. Ultimately, we construct two composite indicators-mode of problem-solving and inclusiveness-calculate them in 41 countries and present policy style classifications based on their combinations. We report the distribution of countries across four policy styles (administrative, managerial, accommodative, adversarial) and conclude with an analysis of the clusters, assessments of robustness, and comparison with other national policy style classification schemes.

Why do countries respond differently when they face the same pandemic? In this article, we comparatively investigate the effects of policy styles in shaping responses to the COVID-19 crisis in two European countries: Greece and Sweden. Extending the concept of policy styles to extraordinary policymaking, we argue that political trust and policy styles result in national responses that range from centralization to decentralization. The combination of policy styles and political trust inevitably raises questions about the role of experts in shaping responses to pandemics. We conclude with implications for theories of national policy styles, political trust and crisis management.

The ongoing institutional and economic crisis of the E U has created new stereotypes, as well as facilitated the return of old prejudices across the member states, with important implications for the future of European integration. The crisis has generated broad media coverage challenging the reputations of countries most affected by the recession and those who bear the financial burden of bailouts. Characteristically, Greece has been often described as the ‘sick man of Europe’ (Exadaktylos and Zahariadis, 2014), while references to ‘the sinking euro’, ‘lazy Greeks’, ‘hard-working Germans’ and ‘detached Brits’ are frequently hosted in headlines, news reports and editorial commentary in newspapers across Europe (e.g.. Der Spiegel, 2011; EU Observer, 2011; Forbes, 2011; The Economist, 2011).

During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union’s international relations have become more substantial and its foreign policy more focused. European foreign policy has become a dynamic policy area, being adapted to changing challenges and environments, such as the Arab Spring, new emerging economies/powers; the crisis of multilateralism and much more. The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy, Two-Volume set, is a major reference work for Foreign Policy Programmes around the world.

This is all the more alarming since the origins of democracy can be found in our continent. The changes have an (negative) impact on the European integration process as such and on support for EU enlargement.

Why do national governments fail to implement deep reforms in light of strong international and European pressures? Building on the top-down implementation framework by Mazmanian and Sabatier, we argue that political trust underpins the government's implementation track record. We investigate this argument by looking at the failure of the Greek government to implement bailout reforms between 2010 and 2012 in two areas: tax and duty collection and liberalization of taxi licenses. Lower levels of trust decrease administrative capacity and widen problem intractability, creating a vicious cycle of noncooperation and economic recession. Our findings have policy implications for administrative reforms and offer amendments to theories of implementation and institutional rational choice. © The Policy Studies Organization.

Crises have long been used as a motor for European integration (Jo, 2007). ‘Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of solutions adopted for these crises’, pronounced Jean Monnet to highlight the importance of crises in shaping policy change. Most narratives have focused on how periods of turbulence are used as opportunities to overcome old enmities and political opposition to change policies and institutions (Kühnhardt, 2009). However, crises can also be occasions for decline. Leaders may not draw the ‘right’ lessons and may ultimately create institutions that fail to adequately address the causes and effects of the crisis. What factors explain the institutional reforms observed during Europe’s financial crisis? Institutions are defined as formal and informal rules of behaviour that govern EU macroeconomic and monetary stability.

Informed by epistemological pluralism and state-of-the-art debate on research design in the social sciences, this volume combines conceptual elaboration with substantive research puzzles. Research Design in European Studies investigates different notions of causality and relates them to methods and techniques. Designed for use either in a course on European Union politics or in preparing projects on Europeanization, the book offers an applied perspective on research methods in specific areas of qualitative approaches to causality, as well as chapters introducing quantitative, critical realist, and discursive strategies. Substantively, the contributors tackle research issues in the domains of compliance, EU external relations, foreign policy, health care, party politics and urban governance.

In late 2009, Greece found itself in the global spotlight as the country struggled to remain solvent and in the Eurozone. The Greek debt crisis became the subject of world summits, international news headlines and intense market activity. In the four years that followed, the Greek government implemented a series of radical austerity measures, while receiving bailouts and loans of unprecedented magnitude. The situation in Greece revealed structural deficiencies in the European integration project and threatened the existence of the Eurozone itself. This volume investigates the framing, policies and politics of extreme austerity during those crucial four years. It also puts the Greek case into a global context by comparing it to the situation in countries that have faced similar challenges, such as Spain, Ireland, Argentina and Turkey. Featuring multidisciplinary contributions from leading social scientists and an exclusive interview with George Papandreou – the former Greek Prime Minister who handled the crisis from 2009 to 2011 – this is the first comprehensive account of the economic crisis at the heart of Europe. This volume investigates the framing, policies and politics of extreme austerity during those crucial four years.

In the early 1990s, the countries of the Eastern Bloc faced the collapse of existing socialism and the loss of important commercial ties with the Soviet Union. The transition from the socialist regime to liberal democracy brought about the transition from a centrally planned economy to the free market. The purpose of this article is to study the two proposed economic transition methods and to examine the reasons why there were different economic outcomes in the countries of Southeastern Europe. The first section analyzes the basic theoretical methods on economic transition. The second section traces the common factors present in the Balkan countries and the third, the possible causes that affected the smooth transition to a market economy based on these common factors. Finally, the article combines these factors with other country specific circumstances. The article comes to the conclusion that for Southeastern Europe their relative failure is not due to the choice of method but rather, due to the specific factors present in the Balkans: low levels of industrialization at the onset of communism, low incomes at the start of the post-communist era, geographic location, and, failure to achieve a clear breakup with their past economic and political system.

Research on the European Union over the past few years has been strongly implicated in the crises that currently grip Europe with a failure to ask the pertinent questions as well as a perceived weakness in the methods and evidence used by researchers providing the basis for these allegations. This volume moves the study of EU research strategies beyond the dichotomies of the past towards a new agenda for research on Europe through a rich diversity of problem-solving based research. This new agenda acknowledges the weaknesses of the past and moves beyond them towards greater openness and awareness of the importance of research strategies, designs and methods. The 20 chapters in this collection range from micro-level analyses of identities, single policy studies and European discourse, through meso-level analysis of agenda setting, bargaining, implementation and Europeanisation, to macro-level analyses of the EU as a global actor, European integration and globalisation as well as hard and soft governance, elections and party groups, attitude formation, and new-regionalism. As such, it provides a comprehensive and accessible guide to conducting research on the European Union today.

Fifty years since the inception of European integration, political scientists are increasingly attracted by the theoretical and empirical puzzles of how to establish if and how the EU has changed representation, governance and public policy in the member states and beyond. Broadly speaking, this is the domain of Europeanization research. In this chapter, we first make the argument that the concern with Europeanization is somewhat in the genes of the academic study of European integration. In a sense, this field of research has always existed. But in another sense, Europeanization as a distinct research field is increasingly prominent, as shown by several literature reviews and internet sites2 dedicated to this topic (Olsen, 2002; Börzel and Risse, 2003; Graziano and Vink, 2007; Lenschow, 2005; Axt et ai, 2007; Schimmelfennig, 2007).

Abstract Political parties frequently engage in exclusionary narratives resulting in a game of blame-shifting. While this is understandably part of political life, claiming responsibility is decreasing and blame attribution is increasing in times of crisis as political actors seek to minimise political cost and rally supporters. Crises also create fertile ground for polarisation as affected citizens look for quick solutions and are driven to the extremes of the political spectrum. That effect has been demonstrated in Greece (Capelos & Exadaktylos, 2017; Vasilopoulou et al., 2014): political parties in the first years of the Greek financial crisis (2009–2012) engaged in an endless game of blame-shifting and exclusion, which was replicated within opinion pieces within mainstream press. This resulted in the polarisation of society with new political cleavages emerging, most notably on the pro/antiausterity divide. Within the context of this divide populist rhetoric assisted exclusion as the two sides tried to demarcate boundaries, identify allies and enemies and reinforce a ‘Them’ vs ‘Us’ dichotomy to consolidate their identities. This chapter assesses how embedded this divide has become in setting up the electoral campaigns for the 2019 General Election between the two main contenders, Syriza and New Democracy in the way they projected their political narrative in the public sphere. Using substantive content analysis of framing, this chapter collected opinion pieces written from the day the election was announced (26 May) to day after the result (8 July) in two newspapers: New Democracy–leaning Kathimerini and Syriza-leaning Avgi. This chapter identified the blame frames of the two sides and assessed polarisation by coding for the tone of references using an exclusivity index as developed by Vasilopoulou et al. (2014). The findings suggest that both newspapers engaged in a race of blame, bringing the political debate to the forefront and ensuring that polarisation was transferred into the public sphere, consolidating the ‘them’ vs ‘us’ divide.

This edited volume brings together a range of examples illustrating the development and importance of regional actors in the global governance of the political economy.

Despite consecutive MoUs (2010, 2012, 2015), Greek health reforms have been slow-moving with some successes and failures. Why did some reforms succeed while others failed to be implemented? Using the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), this working paper presents evidence collected from interviews with health policy-related elites and stakeholders in Greece and traces the process of implementation to identify sticky points and configurations of pro- and anti-change coalitions. We hypothesise implementation outcomes are due to three factors: the strategies and power of the main non-state coalition partner (the medical profession), the size of resources needed for successful implementation, and the ability (or not) of government to mobilise public opinion. We examine three cases: the liberalisation of the pharmacy profession (successful implementation), family doctor reforms (partial implementation), and the referral system (mainly unsuccessful implementation). The working paper concludes with implications about policy implementation and practical lessons for policymakers considering possible implementation obstacles.

The European Union referendum was supposed to be a significant moment for political engagement and ownership in the UK. This article looks at how the two official European Union referendum campaigns (Vote Leave and Remain) framed discussions about the UK’s membership of the European Union, as well as the impact of the campaign on women’s political activation. Using data from a survey questionnaire conducted two weeks after the European Union referendum (in July 2016), we analyse women’s sense of political efficacy and engagement with European politics. We project those findings on a frame analysis, where we assess the footprint of each campaign in terms of issue coverage and the salience of gender as a campaign issue. Our findings shed light on the way in which issue framing and confidence affect the quality of political engagement among ‘weak publics’.

This article examines the individual, collective and social emotions embedded in media discussions of the financial crisis. Emotional experiences towards crises and the political institutions associated with them serve as valuable tools in understanding how citizens think and feel in the public sphere. We highlight over-time links between individual, collective and social emotionality as we analyze the content of UK media representations of the European financial crisis, from 2009 to 2012. We code editorials from journalists, and commentaries from experts, public figures and opinion leaders published in four UK newspapers, and identify the valence and affective tone of individual, collective and social expressions of anger, fear, disappointment, hope, pride, and compassion. We also examine how these interlinked levels of emotional talk underpin the public’s blame attributions. This article contributes to the systematic understanding of the impact of the financial crisis on public opinion, and considers its contribution towards European integration attitudes in the period marked by the introduction of Brexit as term in the public sphere.

This chapter deals with the pitfalls and pathways of research design aimed at the study of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and maps out the literature on questions of knowledge ambition, research ontology and epistemology, and choices of approaches to the research object. We include a review of traditional research designs in ENP research, through a systematic meta-analysis of a selection of the most-cited articles on the ENP. Inspired by earlier work on awareness of research design in EU studies, ENP research is categorised according to typical choices of research design in the form of dichotomous trade-offs. The chapter then discusses how individual contributions to this volume deal with research design challenges of the past and present innovative ways of studying the revised ENP.

It has become virtually impossible to discuss developments in European politics without referring constantly to the concept of ‘crisis’ (Rhinard, 2019). Crises are now a recurrent element in European politics, even though EU-specific crises, such as the Euro-crisis, economic stagnation, refugee crisis, terrorist crisis and Brexit, have been trumped by eminently global crises, starting from the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, they are now so numerous and overlapping that it has become impossible even to characterize a solar year by attaching it to a specific crisis. This is certainly the case with 2021, which began with a massive response to the enduring Covid-19 crisis and ended with the emergence of a dramatic energy and inflation crisis – not to mention rising tensions at the time between Ukraine and Russia at the eastern boarder of the EU, which turned into a fully-fledged war in 2022.

In political science, Europeanisation is a field concerned with the empirical effects of European integration on domestic political structures and public policy, and their normative appraisal (see Jensen and Kristensen, 2012). Research projects on Europeanisation have looked at effects on new and old member-states, countries that are approaching membership or, more generally, political systems that are influenced by the political decisions (e.g. foreign policy) and public policy of the EU. This dimension of external projection of the EU institutions and policies ties in with the literature on diffusion (Börzel and Risse, 2012). It has led researchers to consider issues such as why and how the institutional template of the European Court of Justice has been imitated in other areas of the globe (Alter, 2012). However, the majority of studies revolve around the effects on the member-states, sometimes including also the regional and local dimensions (Dossi, 2012; Pasquier, 2005).

Greece was heralded as a success story in the way the government responded to the coronavirus crisis, compared to other EU member states. Greece managed to tackle the first wave of COVID-19 with a low number of fatalities, without overburdening its frail public healthcare system. The Greek government responses were characterised by high centralisation of decision-making, driven by expert advice, consistency and clarity of message which contributed to the success above. This was surprising, considering the long-term effect of austerity on healthcare provision and the series of failed administrative reforms as a result of the Eurozone crisis. This chapter outlines the Greek response, arguing that government policy followed pre-existing patterns of administrative and institutional architecture, as well as cultural specificities and state–society relations patterns. We demonstrate the response reflected the capacity of the state to command and control its citizens but also achieve the targets that it set out in its response, i.e. saving lives over the economy.

The ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, the current financial outlook and sustainability concerns raise the key question of the effects of integration, more so than the origin or the nature of the process itself. The issue is exactly how, where and through which mechanisms and in cornbination with what other agents or parallel processes of change these transformative effects come about.

EU studies extend into political science, political theory, public and foreign policy analysis, and international relations. The field's diversity speaks to different ontological, epistemological and methodological traditions and research practices. How the EU is conceived as a political reality and entity (ontology) tends to shape how researchers substantiate knowledge production about EU affairs (epistemology) and the way they uncover this knowledge (methodology), alongside choosing research methods and data. We argue that a 'directional dependency' exists between research ontology, epistemology, methodology and design. Using a meta-analysis, we review EU politics research, mapping out directional dependencies in research design; how the paths operate; and deviations from those paths. We explore damaging effects of the research design process, evaluating how much this trap informs research in principle or in practice. We find that while in-principle directional traps exist, research can be trapped to in-practice dependencies, limiting the scope of innovation in the field.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss questions of causality and measurement on national foreign policy beyond the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) framework. In that respect, foreign policy is defined in a broader framework of coordination of economic, political and military tools (Jorgensen, 1997; Smith, 1999). The analysis focuses on how the conduct of national foreign policy has been influenced by the implementation of European Union (EU) enlargement policies as a soft foreign policy tool. The research puzzle then becomes whether the case of Enlargement brought about the Europeanization of the foreign policy of the old member states towards Central and Eastern European candidates. If that case can be argued, then how can we establish causality of Europeanization, isolating it from other determining domestic or global factors?

This book explores the reasons behind the variation in national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it furthers the policy studies scholarship through an examination of the effects of policy styles on national responses to the pandemic. Despite governments being faced with the same threat, significant variation in national responses, frequently of contradictory nature, has been observed. Implications about responses inform a broader class of crises beyond this specific context. The authors argue that trust in government interacts with policy styles resulting in different responses and that the acute turbulence, uncertainty, and urgency of crises complicate the ability of policymakers to make sense of the problem. Finally, the book posits that unless there is high trust between society and the state, a decentralized response will likely be disastrous and concludes that while national responses to crises aim to save lives, they also serve to project political power and protect the status quo.This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of public policy, public administration, political science, sociology, public health, and crisis management/disaster management studies.

Theofanis Exadaktylos argues that it remains to be seen whether Greece’s new government will manage to keep up with the rest of Europe’s expectations and show that it is credit-worthy, and that their proposed changes to the memorandum will yield concrete results, or if it will continue its entanglement in Greek politics’ never-ending spiral and succumb to social, economic and political interests and agendas.

Leading scholars explore the complex questions arising from the ongoing transformation of Europe through the deepening and widening effects of European integration. Based on authoritative analyses, the book takes account of the many national, transnational and international processes and contexts in which European integration has become embedded.