Conditionality, Democracy and Institutional Weakness

The Euro‐crisis Trilemma

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7876924
AutoresKevin Featherstone (0000-0001-5652-4338, London School of Economics and Political Science, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen54
NúmeroS1
Páginas48-64
Fecha de publicación2016-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJCMS Journal of Common Market Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0021-9886 • E-ISSN: 1468-5965
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jcms.12411
OpenAlexW2469971333
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas24

The sovereign debt crises of the eurozone have raised a set of systemic challenges for the European Union (EU) that questions the credibility and legitimacy of its governance across two levels, European and domestic. The challenges are both instrumental and normative. The critical case in these respects is Greece: in 2015, it needed a third bail-out, but it also launched a political confrontation with the EU following the election of a leftist-led government. The political drama made the enduring challenges even more acute. Firstly, there were (and are) questions of leadership. How could the eurozone provide leadership and lever domestic reform to keep Greece inside the euro? Was there the political will to do so, at either the European or national levels? Further, there was the institutional challenge that stems from the juxtaposition of complex and disparate leadership at the EU level with low-quality institutions for policy delivery domestically. Beyond the structural conditions, there are normative questions of the terms of the rescue, but also issues of the accountability and legitimacy of the decision-making process. What can elections decide in a state under an adjustment programme? Together, these challenges pose a conundrum that is existential in nature for the EU: a trilemma in which the external leadership of reforms via conditionality confronts national democratic choice and the operational deficiencies of weak domestic institutions...

Conditionality · Democracy · democratic deficit · Economics · Keynesian economics · Law and economics · Monetary policy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Trilemma · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies · State Capitalism and Financial Governance