'The troika is dead, long live the domestic troikas?' : varieties of technocracy and the diffusion of national fiscal councils in the European Union : agents, trustees or orchestrators of fiscal discipline?

Abstract

Published online 3 Jul 2018 ; This article shows that the troika institutions — the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — formed a technocratic consensus about the desirability of establishing national fiscal councils in the European Union (EU). Considerable disagreement existed, however, with regards to their design features. Each institution promoted a distinct mode of indirect governance by ranking national fiscal councils depending on their adopted governance model (agent, trustee or orchestrator). This persuasion through entrepreneurial bench- marking constitutes an important mechanism by which member states were nudged to adopt a distinct fiscal council model. Preference heterogeneity among the troika members ultimately prevented the spread of a one-size-fits-all fiscal council in the EU.