Rational Idiosyncrasy and Monetary Integration

Erik Jones's The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union is a tightly written book that provides a dense analytical overview of the issues surrounding economic and monetary integration within the European Union (EU). The jacket describes Jones's book as a textbook, which seems apt given its basic structure and comprehensiveness. Indeed, the scope is impressive for such a short work. Jones begins at the basic theoretical technology of money and moves stepwise through the design of monetary institutions, legitimacy in monetary unions, economic adjustment, the relative weight of domestic and international goals in monetary union, the changing Franco–German relationship, and the role of economic and monetary union in the symbolic politics of Europe. Unlike most textbooks, however, The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union also makes explicit arguments. The core claim is that the politics of monetary integration are highly idiosyncratic, with Europeans' support for or opposition to the monetary union and to particular policies within it reflecting a variety of national or local concerns. This hyperpluralism explains why economic and monetary union has been hard to achieve, but it also suggests that it will be quite stable because no coherent opposition to integration is likely to arise. Two other arguments bolster this optimism. First, despite tensions resulting from the sharing of power across regional, national, and local governments, economic and monetary union in Europe is democratically legitimate. Second, “contrary to conventional wisdom, [economic and monetary union] helps to increase the range of policy combinations that are available to member state governments,” (p. 13) which actually enhances macroeconomic flexibility. Overall, therefore, economic and monetary union should and likely will gradually settle into the background of European politics as a “minor technological improvement” (p. 191).