Projects

Completed Projects

Credit Lending as Two-Level Game: Troika-Debtor Negotiations in the Eurozone

Headed by:

Project collaborators:

  • Sven Hilgers
  • Sebastian Schneider

Funding Period: 01.01.2015 — 31.12.2019

DFG (LU 867/2-1)

The European financial and debt crisis has led to new patterns of coordination and cooperation between international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), supranational organizations like the European Commission and the European Central Bank, private and public creditors and a number of European crisis countries. Coordination focuses on the negotiation of lending programs which tie the disbursement of loans to compliance with restrictive program conditionalities. So far, the dynamics of interaction between creditor coalition and debtor state have been studied for IMF lending to developmental and transformation countries in the Latin American debt crisis, the Asian crisis and the transformation of Eastern Europe. This project seeks to analyze the process of negotiation and implementation of lending programs in five European countries (Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, Latvia) from the viewpoint of the debtor government. We ask under which conditions the debtor, facing international and domestic constraints, enjoys “room to move” to substantially influence the loan conditionalities. Drawing on the “Two-Level Game” approach we develop a model to study the discretion of the debtor in a negotiation shaped by power asymmetry.

Project related publications

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Peer reviewed papers and book chapters:
  • (2021) (Susanne Lütz, ed.): Special Issue of Global Policy – Global-Regional Realignments in Trade, Finance and Development (forthcoming)
  • (2021) (Sven Hilgers) : Business and Monetary Policy, in: Aynsley Kellow, Tony Porter and Karsten Ronit (Eds.), Handbook Business and Public Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (forthcoming)
  • (2021) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Schuldenspiele: Policy-Dynamiken und strategische Interaktion bei der Aushandlung europäischer Kreditprogramme, in: Daniel Buhr et al. (eds.), Festschrift für Josef Schmid: Innovation und Wohlfahrt(staat) - Neue Ideen für Wissenschaft und Politik. Baden-Baden: Nomos (forthcoming)
  • (2019) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Games Borrower Governments Play: The Implementation of Adjustment Programmes in Cyprus and Portugal, in: West European Politics. [Abstract/Paper available at Taylor & Francis].
  • (2019) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Troika Institutionen als Internationale Bürokratien - Der Einfluss inkongruenter Organisationskulturen auf Kreditkonditionalitäten, in: DMS-der moderne Staat. 12 (1), 1-20. [Abstract/Paper available at Budrich Journals]
  • (2019) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): When numbers don’t add up: Bureaucratic culture and conflicts in EU-IMF programs. Forthcoming in: Michele Chang / Federico Steinberg and Francisco Torres (Eds.), The Political Economy of Adjustment Throughout and Beyond the Eurozone Crisis: What Have We Learnt? Abingdon/London: Routledge.
  • (2018) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers): When Overlapping Organisations Play Two-Level Games: IMF–EU Interaction in Credit Lending to Latvia and Greece, in: New Political Economy 4 (3), 299-312. [Abstract/ Paper available at Taylor & Francis]
  • Working papers:
  • (2018) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Of Accountants, Europeanists, and Monetary Guardians:
  • Troika Institutions as International Bureaucracies, Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, 24 August, 2018, in Hamburg.
  • (2018) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Games borrower governments play. The Implementation of EAPs in Cyprus and Portugal. Paper presented at the Workshop “One Crisis, many Perspectives: Understanding the Politics of the Eurozone Crisis”, 29-30 January, 2018, University of Zurich and at the Polis-Kolloquium, FernUniversität in Hagen, 17 April, 2018.
  • (2018) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): When Overlapping Organisations play Two-Level Games. IMF-EU Interaction in Credit Lending to Latvia and Greece. Paper presented at the Workshop “One Crisis, many Perspectives: Understanding the Politics of the Eurozone Crisis”, 29-30 January, 2018, University of Zurich and at the DVPW-Sektionstagung Politische Ökonomie, Darmstadt, 22-23 February, 2018.
  • (2018) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider):Credit Lending as Two Level Game. DFG-Project Presentation at the Workshop “One Crisis, many Perspectives: Understanding the Politics of the Eurozone Crisis”, 29-30 January, 2018, University of Zurich.
  • (2017) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): International Organizations in European Credit Lending. Paper presented at the 113th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), 31 August-September 3, 2017 in San Francisco, USA.
  • (2017) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): „Of Accountants, Europeanists and Monetary Guardians: Conflicting Approaches in European Financial Assistance. Paper presented at the 24th International Conference of Europeanists, July 12-14, 2017 in Glasgow.
  • (2017) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Conflict and Cooperation in European Credit Lending. Paper presented at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention, February 22-25th, in Baltimore, USA.
  • (2017) (Sven Hilgers): "Seeing like the European Central Bank - Analytic institutions in Central Banking". Paper presented at the workshop: "New Roles for Central Banks?" University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, February 2017 and at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in Baltimore, USA, February 22-25, 2017.
  • (2017) (Sven Hilgers): "Reinterpreting financial stability - Seeing like the European Central Bank on debt restructuring". Paper presented at the conference: “The Political Role of the European Central Bank in European Union Governance“, University of Duisburg-Essen, April 5-6, 2017 and at the Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), University of Lyon, France, June 29-July 1, 2017.
  • (2017) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘A tale of two crises: Growth models and institutional change in Ireland and Portugal’, Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Oslo, September 6–9.
  • (2017) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘Growth models and interest group formation in Ireland and Portugal’, Paper presented at the 113th APSA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, August 31 – September 3.
  • (2017) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘Growth models, interest group formation and economic adjustment in the eurozone crisis’, Paper presented at the 24th International Conference of Europeanists, Glasgow, July 12–14.
  • (2017) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘Growth models and institutional change in the eurozone crisis’, Paper presented at the Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Lyon, June 29 – July 1.
  • (2016) ( Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers): Cooperation between overlapping international organizations – IMF-EU Interaction in Lending Programs for Latvia and Greece. Paper presented at the DVPW-Drei Länder Tagung “Regionalismus in einer entgrenzten Welt”, Heidelberg, September 29 - Oktober 1, and at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in Baltimore, USA, February 22-25, 2017, Panel: „Legacies and Innovations in Global Economic Governance since Bretton Woods“.
  • (2016) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘Unequal aftermath: vested interests and economic adjustment in the eurozone crisis´, Paper presented at the EAEPE Summer School 2016, Rome, July 4-8.
  • (2016) (Sven Hilgers):To bail-in or not to bail-in: Seeing like the European Central Bank in the Troika. Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Workshop “The Politics of Central Banking”, Pisa – April 24-28, 2016.
  • (2015) (Susanne Lütz / Sven Hilgers / Sebastian Schneider): Credit Lending as Two-Level Game: Troika-Debtor Negotiations in Cyprus and Portugal. Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference Panel “The politics of bailout negotiations”, Montreal – August 26-29, 2015 & at the workshop “Financial Crisis Management and its Consequences in Comparative Perspective”, Berlin - April 7-8, 2016.
  • (2015) (Sebastian Schneider): ‘Coordination no more: The Eurozone Crisis and the Dismantling of Wage Setting Systems in the European periphery’, Paper presented at the 10th Annual University of Pittsburgh Graduate Student Conference on the EU, Pittsburgh, March 27-28.
10.05.2024