The Covid-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented global challenges, impacting various aspects of society, including peoples’ work environments. In response to the pandemic, governments implemented...Show moreThe Covid-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented global challenges, impacting various aspects of society, including peoples’ work environments. In response to the pandemic, governments implemented policies mandating remote work wherever possible. Public sector agencies faced unique challenges in adapting to virtual work, especially given their traditional reliance on face-to-face interactions. This thesis investigates the impact of Covid-19 policies on the development and retention of e-leadership skills among public sector leaders in the municipality of Karlsruhe, Germany. Focusing on the durability of skill adaptations post-pandemic, the study addresses the research question: "What is the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic policies on the durable retention of e-leadership skills of public sector leaders post Covid-19?" Through seven semi-structured interviews with municipal leaders, the research explores which e-leadership skills, developed in response to pandemic policies, endure after their expiration. The analysis reveals a nuanced relationship between the Covid-19 pandemic policies and the retention of e-leadership skills. Some skills, such as e-technological, e-supporting, and e-trustworthiness skills, exhibit a lasting impact, while others, like e-social, e-team building, and e-motivational skills, show partial retention. These nuanced findings emphasize the complexity of e-leadership dynamics, calling for a tailored approach to address skill retention in the post-pandemic landscape.Show less
In sociological research, historical and sociological institutionalism is used to understand the decision-making process within institutions. Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, the EU has...Show moreIn sociological research, historical and sociological institutionalism is used to understand the decision-making process within institutions. Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, the EU has frequently underlined to take action to support Ukraine and its sovereignty. This research will create an understanding of how the EU comes to conflict policy and why the institution eventually imposed economic sanctions in response to Russia.Show less
Within three years since its introduction in 1999, the euro has developed into the second most important global reserve currency. This thesis is aimed at explaining mechanisms that contributed to...Show moreWithin three years since its introduction in 1999, the euro has developed into the second most important global reserve currency. This thesis is aimed at explaining mechanisms that contributed to the euro’s international position. The international role of the euro before and after the eurozone debt crisis will be compared, in order to explain why the euro maintained its position subsequent to this crisis. In addition, this thesis will highlight the importance of the Economic and Monetary Union due to its relation to the development of the international role of the euro. A stronger international role can be achieved by strengthening the Economic and Monetary Union, and in turn a more enhanced monetary union acts as a shield against possible financial crises. By using the new institutionalist theory of historical institutionalism along with the method of process-tracing, it is anticipated to determine critical events and to develop a process of causal mechanisms that can explain why the euro happened to maintain its international position after enduring one of the most critical economic and financial setbacks in the history of the eurozone.Show less
Deposit Guarentee Scheme, Directive, De Nederlandsche Bank, European Commission, The European Central Bank, Policy Learning, Single-Case Study, Process Tracing
This paper investigates the causes behind the continual suspension of the European Union’s (EU) Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) under its general escape clause (GEC) throughout the period of 2020...Show moreThis paper investigates the causes behind the continual suspension of the European Union’s (EU) Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) under its general escape clause (GEC) throughout the period of 2020-2023. The GEC was triggered in March of 2020 on the recommendation of the European Commission to give member states fiscal room to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, but has remained in place for over three years, despite the subsiding of pandemic emergency measures, restored levels of economic activity, and the repeated recommendations and predictions from numerous European institutions that the rules were to be reinstated at the end of 2022 by the very latest. With the emergence of a legislative proposal from the European Commission to reform the SGP’s rules, questions have emerged from journalistic endeavours and academic literature as to the purpose of the extended suspension. This paper utilises explaining-outcome process-tracing as described by Beach and Pedersen (2013) to compare the expectations and assumptions of varying theories, particularly the “failing forward” theory of Jones et al., (2016) to investigate and explain the European Commission’s decision-making in the case of the SGP’s continual suspension. It concludes that the continual suspension can be minimally explained by ongoing reform efforts by the European Commission, in line with the theoretical expectations of Jones et al. and the findings of Schön-Quinlan and Sciponi (2017). It cannot rule out that the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the economic knock-on effects, played a part in the decision for continual suspension. The findings of this paper have implications for understanding the European Commission as a fiscal actor in an economic crisis, and understanding the relevance of particular theories of European integration to the historical context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Show less
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022 Growth Plan sent the markets into meltdown, the ramifications of which are still felt almost a year on. Using process tracing, this paper seeks to explain the...Show moreLiz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022 Growth Plan sent the markets into meltdown, the ramifications of which are still felt almost a year on. Using process tracing, this paper seeks to explain the policy choices of the Growth Plan by adopting a discursive institutionalist approach. First, this paper investigates the influence of ideas held by the two key decision-makers, Truss and Kwarteng, and finds that ideas they held for over a decade significantly influenced many of the Growth Plan’s policies. Secondly, this paper explores the influence of ideas furthered by right- leaning think tanks on the policies of the Growth Plan. The results indicate that, while there are limitations to think tank influence, it is likely that the ideas of right-leaning think tanks played a significant role in shaping the policies of the Growth Plan. Causal mechanisms lie at the heart of this paper, responding to calls for a greater emphasis on the causal mechanisms linking ideas to policy outcomes (Campbell, 2002; Jacobs, 2009). Therefore, the results contribute to the body of literature investigating the explanations for economic policymaking and seeks to provide new findings for the literature which is engaged in a fractious debate about the role of think tanks in policymaking.Show less
This thesis investigates the developments between the birth of Bitcoin (2008) and the launch of the digital euro project (2021), in order to formulate an answer to the question of why the European...Show moreThis thesis investigates the developments between the birth of Bitcoin (2008) and the launch of the digital euro project (2021), in order to formulate an answer to the question of why the European Central Bank decided to investigate the possibility of a digital euro in July of 2021. The data is collected from both primary and secondary sources, and the method of process tracing has revealed that the conjunction of three events at the end of 2020 have steered the European Central Bank towards this path. The declining use of cash in the euro area, increasing interest in cryptocurrencies among European citizens and businesses, and the growing interest of global central banks in central bank digital currencies, have presented the European Central Bank with four new challenges, respectively: monetary sovereignty and authority, financial instability, the international role of the euro, and political independence. To tackle these challenges that have heightened at the end of 2020, the European Central Bank has decided to start looking into the possibility of a digital euro.Show less
Economic Governance in EU has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), window for reforms have become visible. To...Show moreEconomic Governance in EU has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), window for reforms have become visible. To understand the implications of the proposed reforms by the EU Economic Governance Review, we conduct a case-study analysis of both COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Debt Crisis of 2009 to understand how efficient these proposed SGP reforms could be. The case-study analysis compares the public expenditures of member states to derive the efficiency of the Excessive Deficit procedure (EDP) under SGP. The author is able to derive limitations pertaining to policy failure in the analysis. Overall, even though the study might identify the subjective relevance of EDP amongst the member states, the procyclical impact of the reforms suggest further discourse in the field.Show less
In March 2020, the European Union was hit by the Covid-19, which created opportunities for interest groups to put their ideas on the EU political agenda. Scholars observed an increase in lobbying...Show moreIn March 2020, the European Union was hit by the Covid-19, which created opportunities for interest groups to put their ideas on the EU political agenda. Scholars observed an increase in lobbying activity, and NGOs spotted a trend where polluting industries incorporated Covid-19 into their lobbying strategy against environmental regulation. This trend was coined coronawashing. Building on previous research, one could expect that large, well-organized polluting industry lobby groups would successfully use a crisis like Covid-19 to lobby against environmental regulation, as they have done in the past. However, several large, well-organized polluting industries lobby groups failed to Covid-19 to their advantage. This qualitative case study sets out to uncover the underlying conditions why these lobby’s failed by using Kingdon’s multiple stream model (MSM). The goal is to uncover similar failure conditions in coronawashing cases for a future hypothesis. Three cases of polluting industry lobbying groups are selected, namely Copa-Cogeca, BusinessEurope, and EuPC. This research first analyses the cases individually to identify failure conditions and then compares the found failure conditions to identify similarities. In this research, two failure conditions are found across the three coronawashing cases. The first condition is the political time pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic. The European Parliament and EU member states pressured the European Commission to act fast upon the crisis with a recovery plan. The coronawashing lobbies were designed to mobilize supporters against environmental regulation over time, so a mismatch between the lobby strategy and quick actions needed to utilize the opportunity. The second failure condition is a ‘’green political resistance’’ against the lobby interests in the three cases. This green political resistance comes from the European Commission and certain parties in the European parliament which prefer environmental policy. These actors opposed the interests of the lobbying polluting industry groups openly, which caused the lobby’s to fail. These two failure conditions created a barrier that the polluting industries could not overcome.Show less
"We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again," (Johnson, 2022). This quote was made by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 4th, 2022....Show more"We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again," (Johnson, 2022). This quote was made by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 4th, 2022. It shows the desire not to shut down the country by implementing another lockdown despite the highly infectious Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. This quote shows his perception on the virus, whilst on the other side of the world, Prime Minister Ardern had closed the national borders of New Zealand back in 2020 which have remained closed until further notice. This difference in policy adoption and decision-making processes between two countries which are seemingly very similar in terms of the economic stability, political stability, territory size, and collaborative international partners is very puzzling. This research will therefore concern the identification of the core cause of this difference in policy adoption. The research has been conducted through the use of official governmental legislative documents as well as reliable secondary sources in order to conduct a comparative small-N design-based research. The method of this small-N design is the Most Similar Systems Design II method which aims to uncover the key cause of the difference in outcome of a specific case. For this research, the theories by Kingdon (Kingdon, 1984) ; (Béland & Howlett, 2016) and Dai et al. (Dai, et al., 2021) are used.Show less
