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I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties of late as I’ve been preoccupied studying for an exam on International Relations theory and history. With the exam safely behind me I’m back to blogging, but still have academic IR debates on the mind, so today I want to write about what the history of early 20th century European relations can tell us about the continent’s current political economy.

To grossly oversimplify, back in the pre-WWI days Europe was controlled by a number of Great Powers of roughly equal strength, who were in continual competition with one another to run the world. They typically pursued their goals by forming loose and shifting alliances; whenever any one state seemed to be getting too strong, a collection of the others would team up to balance against it (hence the “balance of power”). Britain, which then as now prized its position as being of but not in Europe, considered itself the ultimate balancer, frequently weighing in against the strongest continental power to ensure no state could establish hegemony over the mainland.

Now fast-forward to the Europe of today, as the debt crisis stretches into its third year. Of everything that has been written on the Euro crisis so far, I think one of the most perceptive and insightful pieces was an op-ed by Anne Applebaum all the way back in September 2010 (doesn’t that feel like a long time ago?), which made one simple but important point: thanks to the crisis, the East-West divide, which had dominated intra-European relations since at least the end of World War II, has now been overtaken by the North-South divide. The “North” – represented by Germany, Scandinavia, and some Eastern European economies like Poland and Estonia – are ruled by budget hawks committed to fiscal discipline; the “South” – including Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and perhaps Bulgaria and Hungary – are home to bloated public sectors and seem unable to get their public finances under control. The geography doesn’t match up perfectly, of course, and it’s easy to argue about which countries belong on which side, but the fundamental divide is hard to ignore. And while the two groups aren’t anything like formal alliances, the economic interests within each group are more closely aligned than those across the divide, and hence it’s easy to imagine the major disagreements about how to manage the European economy over the coming years falling more or less along this fault line.

As Applebaum noted at the time, “France floats somewhere in between”. I think this means that France is positioned, if it wanted to, to play something like the role Britain played 100 years ago, able to weigh in – perhaps decisively – on the side of either the North or the South. The analogy isn’t watertight – Britain’s role as balancer was based in its fundamental strength, whereas for France today it’s more about being considerably weaker than Germany but aspiring to be viewed as its neighbour’s equal. (Which, incidentally, is another theme that reappears throughout European history…) But still, in the new North vs. South Europe France could represent the crucial swing vote, and throw some political clout behind the interests of the South, preventing Germany from fully setting the economic agenda for the continent.

In any case, up until now France has clearly sided with the North, epitomized in the “Merkozy” romance. But as the French prepare to head to the polls it appears increasingly likely Sarkozy is on his way out, which could dramatically shake up the picture. From many of the campaign statements he’s made to date, it seems at least possible a Hollande government would rupture the informal Franco-German alliance and move the French into the “South” camp. (It’s worth noting that I’m not particularly talking about whether Hollande would actually harm the French economy and investment culture, as some seem to fear, but rather about whether France will continue to stand behind Germany in intra-European political economy battles or rather take up the cause of the Southern nations.)

To bring back some academic IR terms, the impetus for such a transition can be understood in both realist/materialist terms and constructivist/identity terms. From a realist point of view, it could be that France’s interests no longer lie with the Northern interests of tight money and imposed austerity. From a constructivist point of view, it’s easy to imagine the French self-identity under Hollande evolving from Germany’s little brother to the champion of the downtrodden South. As these two forces interact, I don’t think it’d be that surprising to see France pivot from backing up Germany to balancing against the strongest power on the continent, and challenging the Germans on their vision for the future of the European economy.

Over the past several months the Eurozone has entered a strange period of stasis, what has effectively become a period of permanent crisis. Since the crisis first erupted pretty much every policy measure adopted has been an effort to “buy time”, but nothing’s really been accomplished with this time, and so nothing’s really changed. There aren’t a lot of ways to break out of this status quo; you could have some sort of surprise disorderly default from a periphery economy, but no one really wants that outcome (though I’m starting to think it might be better than continuing down the current path). One thing that could really shake up this political equilibrium, though, would be if France decidedly announces that it no longer supports the current Northern establishment position of forcing austerity on the South.

I’m not saying this necessarily will happen, or even that it’s particularly likely to. But I definitely think it’s a storyline worth watching, and a reason we should all be paying close attention to the upcoming French election…

Geoffrey Gertz is studying International Relations at the University of Oxford. This post also appears on his blog Tomorrow’s Economy.

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2 Comments

  1. April 29, 2012 at 8:38 am — Reply

    ادارة كيفية الاقتصاد الاوروبى فى ظل الظروف السياسية الراهنة بالهبوظ الا كثر ام اقل
    تغليق
    فى ظل الظروف السياسية من توترات سياسية او عسكرية اقليميا او دوليا او عالميا لابد من وضع خطة استراتيجية للمشروعات قصيرة الاجل للعمل على الانتالج ولجذب رؤس اموال للاستثمار لزيادة العائد ولانشاء فرص عمل جديدية لانعاش الاقتصاد وقد اصبح هذا سباقا تنافسيا عالميا-
    ومن ثم ازدهار الاقتصاد وانتعاشه يعنى استقرار الدوزلة سياسيا لان السياسة والاقتصاد وجهان لعملة واحدة
    رؤى جديدة لمواجهة كيفية ادارة الاقتصاد الاوروبى من خلال تعزيز القدرة التنافسية من خلال استراتيجيات التحالف لتضافر جهودهم لتطوير تكنولوجيات ومنتجات جديدة وتحقيق اقتصاديات الحجك\م الكبير والنفاد الى اسواق اوسع اى اعادة الهيكلة هذه التحالفات الاستراتيجية هى السلاح التناتفسى الاكبر ومن المتوقع ان تظل الى مطلع القرن الحادى والعشرين على الاقل مما يؤدى الى تعزيز النمو تالاقتصادى
    اوروبا دخلت معركة تغيير هيكلى سياخذ سنوات عدة لتغيير التوجهات التى سارت بها فلابد من اضافة لاستعادة دور السلطات العامة فى الاشراف على التوجهات الاقتصادية والتدخل بها لمواجهة الازمة المالية وايضا لانجاح الاقتصاديات الاوروبية فى معركة التنافس التى تفرضها العولمة

  2. April 29, 2012 at 9:17 am — Reply

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