Pathways of Crisis Outcomes

This chapter first operationalizes three explanatory factors and the values they can take during a crisis. The factors correspond with the three temporal crisis stages that scholarly literature has established, namely the origin, management, and resolution of a crisis. More concretely, the chapter theorizes the explanatory power of (1) the exogenous or endogenous nature of the crisis, (2) the level of member-state interdependence, and (3) the presence or absence of Franco-German political leadership. These three explanatory factors, together with the four outcome categories introduced in the previous chapter, suggest specific pathways to crisis outcomes. Finally, the chapter formulates falsifiable propositions of how the respective pathways come about.