Opening the black box of ‘convergence’ in the European Economic and Monetary Union: Comparative Political Economy and Europeanisation's contributions

‘Convergence’ is one of the most prominent buzzwords in the construction and governance of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and has recently gained prominence in debates within Comparative Political Economy (CPE) studies about capitalist restructuring under the Euro. However, this article argues that the concept is here problematically treated mostly as a ‘black box’, an opaque process that member states must go through to comply with European directives. As such, these studies neglect both the processes through which ‘convergence’ is pursued, and why the latter plays such an important role in the EMU. This article tackles these issues by analysing ‘convergence’ as an evolving political project of capitalist restructuring in the Monetary Union, assessing its role in official and academic discourses on the latter. The main argument is that, given the constitutive and causal role played by the term in EMU discourse and institutional development, CPE studies should ‘open the black box’ of ‘convergence’, meaning first, engaging discursively with the concept to see how it structures capitalist restructuring efforts; and second, incorporating insights from Europeanisation research to overcome their own limitations, and to better understand dynamics of adaptation to EMU directives. The article is structured in the following way: first, it deploys discursive institutionalism and constructivist political economy to analyse the pervasiveness of ‘convergence’ in EMU discourse, stressing its role as a frame for benchmarking practices in the Union. Second, it highlights how ‘convergence’ has been a perennial discursive problem structuring EMU integration, as seen in its deployment throughout academic debates and official negotiations in the Monetary Union’s history. Finally, it utilises insights from CPE and Europeanisation research to critique the neofunctionalist and neoclassical assumptions behind ‘convergence’, encouraging further engagement between the two perspectives to analyse and respond to the challenges posed by the concept.