Eurozone crisis management and the changing nature of the democratic deficit in the European Union

Abstract

This chapter first takes stock of the alarming findings on the dramatic decline of the quality and legitimacy of democracy, especially in countries of the Eurozone periphery. It further highlights the increasing democratic deficit in the European Union beyond the national level. It argues that improvements of the last decades in the alleviation of the democratic deficit have been annihilated by the management of the Eurozone crisis. Democratic choice has lost much of its meaning at the national level in the Eurozone periphery, and concomitantly, the preexisting democratic deficit of European integration has been aggravated with the politics of crisis management.