The entire JEPP-team wishes you a happy, healthy and successful 2016. JEPP has had a very healthy 2015 with a record number of submissions, surpassing 330 by the end of the year. We hope that you will continue to keep us busy in 2016. In our first newsletter of the new year, we will highlight new journal content, which will appear shortly in the second issue of the 2016 volume.
We also want to draw your attention to the first issue of 2016, which we released last December. With its focus on the Euro crisis, it may look like a Special Issue, but – we promise – it is not. Based on independent submissions, we were able to put together an exciting collection of pieces addressing different facets of the Euro crisis. Wolfgang Streeck and Lea Elsässer discuss the viability of EMU under conditions of continued economic disparities among its members; George Tsebelis explores some of the lessons that the Greek and other EU governments can draw from the Greek crisis; Sergio Fabbrini compares the EU with other unions of states and argues that the EU’s institutional set-up obstructs rather than facilitates the adoption of constitutional solutions in situations such as the Euro crisis. For Philipp Genschel and Markus Jachtenfuchs, EU integration has made remarkable advances in ‘core state powers’ and they contrast the EU experience with state-building dynamics. Stefaan De Rynck provides a fascinating account of the policy process through which the EU adopted a centralized system of banking supervision. James D. Savage and Amy Verdun show that the Euro crisis has left a firm imprint on the Commission, which adapted its internal organisation and strategies to re-gain influence in the crisis-induced integration process. The crisis has had an impact not only on domestic and EU-level institutions: Alina Polyakova and Neil Fligstein ask if the crisis has transformed public attitudes “causing Europe to become more nationalist?”
With the Euro crisis turning into some kind of permanent state of affairs, it is likely to keep you (and us) busy in 2016. In terms of political and media attention, the Euro crisis has already been surpassed by the refugee crisis. We thus encourage you to send us your work to help us better understand the refugee crisis in all its variegated facets, its dynamics and impact on the EU and domestic institutions, political competition and policy reform. Crises also loom elsewhere: The domestic developments in Hungary and Poland have triggered wider discussions about ‘democratic backsliding’. The possibility of ‘Brexit’ is still looming and raises a plethora of questions about the trajectory of the EU. While we welcome work on all of these topics, rest assured that JEPP is not a crisis journal! We will continue to publish work on European and EU politics and policy-making in the broadest possible sense. Or as Jeremy would say: We are a “broad church”, though a secular one.
Take care,
Berthold & Jeremy