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Presidential leadership is examined in the context of German unification. Particular attention is given to the construction of the French negotiating team and the domestic bureaucratic politics of EMU, especially involving Dumas, Guigou, Bérégovoy, and Trichet. Bérégovoy's idea of a third route to EMU is also considered. The key focus is on how French negotiators pursued their objectives, especially the idea of irreversibility.

Chapter 6 discusses the ECB’s pathway to legitimacy, as it moved from following “one size fits none” rules to doing “whatever it takes” in monetary policy. The chapter begins with the ECB’s sources of power, based in its autonomy as a central bank and its leaders’ charismatic qualities, and with its grounds for throughput legitimacy. These largely depend upon ECB accountability to technical forums, since it has minimal formal accountability to political forums (only to the European Parliament), although it has informally increased its accountability through dialogue with political leaders. The chapter follows with a discussion of the Janus-faced public perceptions of the ECB’s governance of the euro during the crisis, split between views of the ECB as hero saving the euro or as ogre imposing austerity and structural reform while railroading countries into programs. As hero, the chapter details ECB President Mario Draghi’s increasingly flexible reinterpretation of his mandate, hid “in plain view” as he transitioned from his predecessor’s “credibility” discourse to a “stability” discourse and from denials of the ECB being a lender of last resort (LOLR) to coming very close to one through quantitative easing (QE). As ogre, the chapter delineates the ways in which ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet coerced vulnerable countries into harsh conditionality programs and Draghi made his active interventions a quid pro quo for austerity and structural reform, as well as the ECB’s initial inefficacy; the continuing orthodoxy of its ideas, especially in contrast to the IMF; and its role in the Troika.

This chapter uses the disaster of Fukushima as a terrifying example of the worst of catastrophes. The disaster that happened at Fukushima is a powerful example that shows the magnitude of destruction brought by the interrelated actions of a seismic quake, a nuclear breakdown, and a dense human population. Although these risks are not present on nuclear facilities alone, this one is different for it is an interdependent totality of our technologized world to which everyone is subject. This can happen amidst from the earth's large population whereby humanity's experiences can be a manifestation toward this end. Emphasis is given to what is incalculable, and in our society, that of money and its ends and means. This is illustrated by the statement of Jean-Claude Trichet, the former president of the European Central Bank, when he said that the financial sector must change its values. This is true but when it comes to the subject of disasters, although nearly everyone knows and believes it, there is a naïve approach and a refusal to better change general equivalence.

Contractual networks emerge when contracts of a financial nature are entered among actors such as firms, states, and individuals. Under certain conditions losses in one part of such networks may spread and cause general damage. This is what happens if the loss is unexpected, as Walter Bagehot has argued. When the financial actors are deposit banks, according to Robert K. Merton, the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy also comes into play. This is roughly what took place during the early phase of the euro crisis (2009–2010), with Greece operating as the trigger. The actors relied on so-called proxy signs, which turned out to be wrong, and when this was realized, a crisis erupted in the eurozone. The eurozone countries which, since the introduction of the euro had increasingly been seen as one unit, were now suddenly evaluated in their own right—with chaos in the market as a result.