Kathleen R. McNamara

Kathleen R. McNamara, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, will study the politics of globalization in the context of tax and spending policies in the European Union. What limits and demands have the increasingly integrated E.U. markets placed on fiscal policymaking within each member state? Will fiscal policymaking, at present the province of elected officials, become as removed from electoral accountability as the monetary policy of the independent central bank? Does market integration always lead to convergence in policies? Or do national traditions and institutions remain important sources of policy differences, and even of competitive advantages? McNamara will make the case that states, far from facing obsolescence, continue to have a significant range of policy options available to them.