Books
2nd Monograph: Margrethe Vestager and European Competition: Gender and Political Leadership in Global Economic Governance
My second book project focuses on Margrethe Vestager, currently the Commission’s Executive Vice President and Commissioner for Competition (2014-2024), who has won landmark international antitrust cases, including against Amazon, Google, and Apple during her tenure.
Although she has been one of the longest-serving female commissioners and one of the most successful commissioners in Europe’s recent history, scholarship has been conspicuously missing, whether on Vestager’s leadership or her competition portfolio from a gender perspective. While competition is a highly prestigious portfolio with far-reaching investigative and decision-making powers, competition enforcement (including cartelization, antitrust, merger regulation, and state aid control) has been highly male-dominated and rendered in masculine—capitalist-competitive—terms.
Drawing on feminist economics, feminist institutionalism, and gender and leadership research, this project will analyze Vestager’s positioning as a leader and as a woman leader in global competition policy. The analysis will focus on her agenda-setting, in/formal mediation, and public-facing leadership, comparing these to other antitrust leaders, as well as examining how European and international audiences evaluated her leadership from a gender perspective.
Credit: European Commission
Political Leadership and the European Commission Presidency
Henriette Müller
Oxford University Press (2020)
Book Website at OUP
Book Reviews
Here you will find the latest reviews of my book by
Buket Oztas in Perspectives on Politics (2023, 21(1), pp. 409-410) and
Giacomo Delledonne in Journal of European Integration (2021, 43(8), pp. 1045-1053):
“Political Leadership and the European [Commission] Presidency is essential reading for those interested in the intra- and interinstitutional relations of the European Commission and “what makes political leadership in supranational governance successful” (p. 5). Müller’s rich and diverse empirical content and in-depth analysis will enhance the debate about the strategies leaders use to achieve goals, garner support, and mediate and build consensus; it will also serve as a valuable source of information and even inspiration for political actors.” (Oztas 2023: 410)
“The main purpose of the book is to fill an evident vacuum: although the president of the Commission is the oldest high office of the EU and participates in all four arenas of decision making, including the European Council, the Council, and the EP, it has received limited attention so far (p. 15).” (Delledonne 2021: 7)
Credit: OUP
Endorsements
“This excellent book addresses the important but under-researched topic of the political leadership of European Commission Presidents. Resting on a systematic and comparative analysis and based on a convincing and clearly explained analytical framework, Müller seeks to unpack what really determines the (successful) leadership performance of Commission Presidents.”
–Michelle Cini, Professor of European Politics, University of Bristol
“This is an excellent and timely book. The scholarship is first-rate; the subject matter highly topical; and the writing refreshingly crisp. The author has mastered a wealth of material on political leadership in general and EU leadership in particular, and strikes a fine balance between theory and practice. Political Leadership and the European Commission Presidency should be essential reading for scholars and students of EU governance, especially at this crucial stage of the EU’s development.”
–Desmond Dinan, Professor of Public Policy and Jean Monnet Professor Ad Personam, George Mason University
“This path-breaking book examines the political leadership of European Commission presidents. Despite intrinsic weaknesses in the office, Müller shows convincingly how and when various presidents are more or less effective in their leadership, examining their personal dispositions, the institutional structure and the specific circumstances in which these presidents serve their term. This study will prove to be the leading ‘go-to’ work on political leadership of Commission presidents.”
–Amy Verdun, Professor of European Politics and Political Economy, Leiden University, and Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam, University of Victoria
Short Synopsis
Exploring the exercise of political leadership at the supranational level, the presidency of the European Commission features a curious mix of strong political functions, complex institutional powers, and demand for political leadership.
My study investigates why personal (pre-)dispositions retain their significance in governance beyond the state, and what makes political leadership in the European Union successful. I concluded that the leadership of Commission presidents is central to the success of EU policy-making, and that successful incumbents strategically transfer political ambitions of a pan-European scope into consensual agendas (agenda-setting leadership) that can be effectively mediated through the European intra- and inter-institutional arenas of decision-making (mediative-institutional leadership) and gain support among European public spheres (public leadership).
By addressing these questions, the book departs from existing research on EU leadership, which has to date analyzed either the EU’s institutional structure and its potential for leadership, or has provided selective evidence from single- and cross-case studies of Commission presidents, mainly focusing on most recent incumbents.
This book systematically analyzes the leadership performance of Walter Hallstein (1958-1967) Jacques Delors (1985-1995), and José Manuel Barroso (2004-2024) over the entire course of their presidential terms.
A complete list of given codes, as well as the interview questionnaire for this study, can be accessed upon request.