Alumna Dr Martina Vass releases new book examining leadership styles in the European Council

DPIR alumna Dr Martina Vass (MPhil in International Relations, 2010, St Cross) has written a new book exploring the leadership styles of leaders in the European Council during the three crises between 2010 and 2016 - the financial and debt crisis, the Ukraine crisis, and the migration crisis.

In Leadership Styles in the European Council: How Leaders Behave Behind Closed Doors, Dr Vass uses the example of five long-term members of the European Council - Werner Faymann, Dalia Grybauskaité, Angela Merkel, Viktor Orbán and Mark Rutte – to outline a theory of leadership styles based on the influence of domestic factors. 

The key message she hopes to convey is that cooperative leadership styles are better suited for the European Council than others. By the same token, she argues that extensive use of uncooperative leadership styles can damage the current environment of the European Council based on negotiations and consensus.

The book, published by Palgrave, also analyses the impact of the European Council environment on leaders’ behaviour and mutual impact on decision-making identifying three effects: socialisation towards cooperation, compromise making, and Europeanisation.

Dr Vass said: 

“The European Council is a body where strategic decisions about the EU and its future are being made, but little is known about how this is actually done and what happens once the leaders disappear in the corridors of the buildings in Brussels. 

“This book sheds some light on these interactions using the perspective of former members of this prestigious club.

“It is a must-read for all those who wish to see behind the closed doors of the European Council. The combination of multidisciplinary theory with empirical analysis and the fact of analysing recent and current members of the body, could be of interest to both, students of EU politics, as well as practitioners wondering how to pave the way for a successful agreement.” 

Dr Vass is a former University of Oxford Weidenfeld scholar and a current EU official. She graduated in international relations in 2010 and worked as a journalist, as well as in different private and government institutions in Slovakia. 

She is currently preparing a number of journal articles following-up on and expanding on the book’s findings.

We caught up with Dr Vass to speak to her in greater detail about the book and her future aspirations:

Can you tell us a little bit more about how your book came about? What motivated you to conduct this research and what were your expectations? 

The book started as my dissertation thesis. At the time when I started to think about the topic - around 2016 - there was a lot of discussion about the lack of leadership in the EU. My impression was that people were expecting one strong leader, a messiah to come and solve all the problems. But my feeling was that this expectation was fundamentally wrong and that the EU did not need a strongman since its strength had always been a compromise. 

Is it your first published book?

It is my first published book, but I have been working in media and communication for a long time, so writing is basically how I make my living. 

What did you learn in writing it?

I learnt a lot about countries, leaders, crises as well as about the EU. And most importantly, I learnt a lot about human behaviour. It is not easy to apply what I learnt in practice, but I am trying.

What do you hope the book will lead to? (impact of it – for whom and why is that important – for whom?)  

I don't think it's good if people look up to strong leaders and expect them to bring simple and miraculous solutions. History has shown us many times where such reliance leads. On the contrary, it is important to realise that simple solutions do not exist and the path to them is always complex and based on discussions and compromises. The wealth of the EU lies precisely in the process leading to solutions, because the process itself has healing effects and can strengthen trust, sense of belonging and belief in the power of cooperation. I would hope that this is what people learn from the book - those who sit in positions of power today as well as those who come after them.

What hopes or ambitions do you have for the future of any further research (implications?)

I would like to follow up on the book with several articles to foster the key message about the value of those processes taking place in the European Council. But I also hope my findings will be useful for both EU students and practitioners in their thinking about the future of the EU. Finally, it would be great to see more empirical research on the European Council and I hope my book could be an inspiration for those who decide to follow this path.