TY - JOUR
T1 - The rhetoric of inaction
T2 - failing to fail forward in the EU’s rule of law crisis
AU - Emmons, Cassandra
AU - Pavone, Tommaso
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - In the EU, political crises often serve as catalysts for policymaking and ‘failing forward’. Yet as a breakdown of the rule of law has swept some member states, EU institutions have repeatedly failed to react. We argue that this outcome is partly tied to how political elites strategically mobilize rhetoric to legitimate stasis during crises. Building on theories of rhetorical action and discursive institutionalism, we rectify their bias for change and draw on Albert Hirschman’s work to theorize ‘rhetorics of inaction’: A coordinative discourse wielded by national and supranational actors to reconcile divergent preferences and justify stasis by appealing to the very policies and values threatened by crisis. We specify the conditions under which rhetorics of inaction are most likely to pervade EU policymaking and illustrate the theory’s explanatory purchase in a case study of the EU’s (non-)responses to the constitutional breakdowns of Hungary and Poland. By tracing the discursive interactions between EU and government policymakers, we demonstrate that populist and partisan affronts on the EU conceal far more sophisticated and obstructive argumentative strategies behind-the-scenes. We conclude that rhetorical politics are central to understanding the EU’s failure to respond to crises and elaborate avenues for future research.
AB - In the EU, political crises often serve as catalysts for policymaking and ‘failing forward’. Yet as a breakdown of the rule of law has swept some member states, EU institutions have repeatedly failed to react. We argue that this outcome is partly tied to how political elites strategically mobilize rhetoric to legitimate stasis during crises. Building on theories of rhetorical action and discursive institutionalism, we rectify their bias for change and draw on Albert Hirschman’s work to theorize ‘rhetorics of inaction’: A coordinative discourse wielded by national and supranational actors to reconcile divergent preferences and justify stasis by appealing to the very policies and values threatened by crisis. We specify the conditions under which rhetorics of inaction are most likely to pervade EU policymaking and illustrate the theory’s explanatory purchase in a case study of the EU’s (non-)responses to the constitutional breakdowns of Hungary and Poland. By tracing the discursive interactions between EU and government policymakers, we demonstrate that populist and partisan affronts on the EU conceal far more sophisticated and obstructive argumentative strategies behind-the-scenes. We conclude that rhetorical politics are central to understanding the EU’s failure to respond to crises and elaborate avenues for future research.
KW - European Union
KW - Rule of law
KW - democratic backsliding
KW - discursive institutionalism
KW - failing forward
KW - rhetorical action
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110873614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85110873614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13501763.2021.1954065
DO - 10.1080/13501763.2021.1954065
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85110873614
SN - 1350-1763
VL - 28
SP - 1611
EP - 1629
JO - Journal of European Public Policy
JF - Journal of European Public Policy
IS - 10
ER -