Comparative Political Studies 1–25 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0010414015617966 cps.sagepub.com Article Failing Forward? The Euro Crisis and the Incomplete Nature of European Integration Erik Jones 1 , R. Daniel Kelemen 2 , and Sophie Meunier 3 Abstract The European Union (EU) project of combining a single market with a common currency was incomplete from its inception. This article shows that the incompleteness of the governance architecture of Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was both a cause of the euro crisis and a characteristic pattern of the policy responses to the crisis. We develop a “failing forward” argument to explain the dynamics of European integration using recent experience in the eurozone as an illustration: Intergovernmental bargaining leads to incompleteness because it forces states with diverse preferences to settle on lowest common denominator solutions. Incompleteness then unleashes forces that lead to crisis. Member states respond by again agreeing to lowest common denominator solutions, which address the crisis and lead to deeper integration. To date, this sequential cycle of piecemeal reform, followed by policy failure, followed by further reform, has managed to sustain both the European project and the common currency. However, this approach entails clear risks. Economically, the policy failures engendered by this incremental approach to the construction of EMU have been catastrophic for the citizens of many crisis-plagued member states. 1 Johns Hopkins University, Bologna, Italy 2 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA 3 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA Corresponding Author: Erik Jones, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, via Belmeloro 11, Bologna, 40126, Italy. Email: erik.jones@jhu.edu 617966CPS XX X 10.1177/0010414015617966Comparative Political StudiesJones et al. research-article 2015 at PRINCETON UNIV LIBRARY on December 16, 2015 cps.sagepub.com Downloaded from