This book is an essential analysis of what really happens behind closed doors during and after a bailout. In the last decade, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on the condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding were implemented. How did negotiations take place in this context? What room for manoeuvre did the governments of these countries have? After conditionality, to what extent were governments willing and able to roll back changes imposed on them by the international lenders? This book explores the constraints on national executives in the five bailed out countries of the Eurozone during and beyond the crisis, from 2008 to 2019. The authors argue that despite international market pressure and creditors' conditionality, governments had some room for manoeuvre during a bailout and were able to advocate, resist, shape or roll back some of the policies demanded by external actors. Under certain circumstances, domestic actors were also able to exploit the constraint of conditionality to their own advantage. Capitalising on constraint shows that after a bailout programme, governments could use their discretion to revert the measures that brought the greatest benefits at a lower cost. The authors provide a valuable insight into the determinants of bargaining leverage, the importance of credibility, and the limits of conditionality that might inform the design of international and European lending during future crises. -- .

This significant new book presents a comparative study of the role of policy research institutes within policy transfer, and the subsequent impact policy transfer has upon the processes of Europeanisation and globalisation. In an era of globalisation, it is generally assumed that processes of policy transfer have increased. At the same time, however, there has been a recognition that understanding governance purely through state centred institutional approaches is no longer tenable. In this book, Stella Ladi argues that in order to fully understand domestic governance we must examine the impact of non-governmental organisations such as policy research institutes. Using a sophisticated, multi-level framework of analysis, the author concentrates on three particular case studies with which to evaluate the transfer of ideas, the transfer of policy programmes and the transfer of institutions, within the European Union. She concludes that the analysis of policy transfer is crucial in identifying international policy entrepreneurs, as well as important policy developments in domestic and world politics. The multi-disciplinary approach of this book will appeal to students and scholars of the social sciences, particularly those specialising in public policy and administration, international relations and comparative politics. It will also be of interest to policymakers and practitioners within international organisations.