Walking the Tightrope: Politicization and the Commission's Enforcement of the SGP*
研究社会层面的欧盟政治化如何影响《稳定与增长公约》的执行，发现政治化推动欧盟委员会采取更灵活的执行策略，甚至渗透到刻意去政治化的政策领域。
Abstract Recent research indicates that bottom‐up EU politicization shapes top‐down EU policy enforcement, yet leaves open questions on the pervasiveness of these effects in policy areas that are depoliticized by design. This contribution asks how societal EU politicization shaped the enforcement of the Stability and Growth Pact up until its COVID‐19‐induced suspension. It employs causal process‐tracing to analyse fiscal rule enforcement under varying levels and constellations of EU politicization. Results indicate that enforcement by the European Commission is shaped both by mandate and exogenous pressures created by politicization and the reputational concerns they induce. Moreover, politicization has gradually pushed the Commission towards increasingly flexible enforcement of EU fiscal rules. These conclusions are relevant because they show that politicization permeates even the most depoliticized areas of EU policy. Additionally, they suggest that the SGP's COVID‐19‐induced suspension can be understood as a continuation of existing enforcement strategies.