More “Europe”, less democracy?

This working paper is based on the paper “More ‘Europe’, Less Democracy: Institutions, Budgets and Democratic Satisfaction”, presented on the conference “Europe at the Cross-Roads: Challenges of the EU for National Politics” held at Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, in October 15, 2018, a partnership between Institute of Public Policy, MAPLE, and FLAD. In this working paper we evaluate the consequences of the changing role of ‘Europe’ for the national decision-making process within European states. Our dominant hypothesis can be stated succinctly as follows: the greater the presence of ‘Europe’ in the national decision-making of European states, the greater citizen dissatisfaction with democracy in these states. What do we mean when we refer to ‘Europe?’ We see the term as a short-hand for that complex of supranational institutions that intervene in the domestic political affairs of European states, including “[The] IMF (International Monetary Fund), along with the Eurozone authorities, i.e. the Euro group (Committee of the Finance Ministers of the Eurozone), the European Commission, and the European Central Bank” (Lewis-Beck and Lobo, 2017, 609).

Authors: Ruth Dassonneville, Alexandra Jabbour and Michael S. Lewis-Beck.