Introduction

Recent assessments of the nature of the eurozone's problems, their origins, and of policy choices and likely outcomes inform our understanding of the crisis and explain its persistence. These accounts detail weaknesses in design of economic and monetary union (EMU) and its implementation (Meyer 2010; Dadush and Stancil 2010; Cooley and Marimon 2011); the manner in which political constraints have limited or distorted policy choices (Scharpf 2011); and the failings of political leadership at both European and national levels (Featherstone 2011). But more or less lost in the welter of commentary is any account of how we identify and account for the trajectory of European economic governance in response to the eurozone's troubles.