Substantive Accountability in Europe’s New Economic Governance

The EU has become an increasingly powerful economic actor, but we lack research on how EU economic decision-makers can be held to account. This book argues that the EU suffers from important substantive accountability deficits; that is, while numerous procedures exist to hold institutions like the European Commission and European Central Bank (ECB) to account, there are few mechanisms to contest the merit and impact of economic decisions. The book combines detailed empirical research on how accountability practices are evolving across different fields of EU economic governance with a novel conceptual framework to assess where accountability deficits lie and how they might be addressed.

Combining leading research in law and political science, this book will be of interest to scholars with an interest in the questions of accountability and economic governance arising from the budgets, central banks and financial institutions of the EU. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Mark Dawson is currently the co-editor of the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy and a member of the Editorial Board of the European Law Review. He has published two monographs and a textbook with Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in leading journals in law and political science, such as the Modern Law Review, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies and Common Market Law Review.