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Democracy without choice – or just ‘the economy, stupid’? Political support during the Eurozone crisis

By Daniel Devine

Between 2008 and 2014, satisfaction with democracy and the trust people had for their political institutions collapsed across most of Europe, but most severely in Southern Europe. Was this decline about the loss of citizens’ democratic choice due to the economic interventions or just the economic turmoil that surrounded them? In a new paper, Daniel Devine provides evidence that the likely cause was the economy rather than concerns about democratic processes.

The mass protests following the economic crisis in 2008 particularly, but not only, in Southern Europe, were concerned not just with the dire economic situation facing the majority of Europe, but how and where decisions were made. This is captured in an interview with an activist for the Barcelona-based Real Democracy Now, who said: ’We believe that real democracy is no longer possible in one country, but on a European level […] The commission, the European Central Bank – they are imposing austerity on us, yet they are not democratic institutions’. In the same tone, a call-to-arms pamphlet, Indignez-Vous, which sold over a million copies and united the European protest movements, decried the power that financial capital had to undermine European democracies. The movements were, of course, about the economic and social impacts of austerity, but also how and from where the policy was implemented. Continue reading “Democracy without choice – or just ‘the economy, stupid’? Political support during the Eurozone crisis”

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How Europe talks about itself: Lessons from the Euro Crisis

By Robert G. Picard

9781784530600Although the continuing Euro Crisis is currently being overshadowed by the refugee crisis in Europe, its economic and political effects continue to shake the foundation of Europe and dampen national economies.

There are lessons to be learned from the way the Euro Crisis has been portrayed about European institutions, how they responds to crises, and the state of European integration and identity. A new book, The Euro Crisis in the Media: Journalistic Coverage of Economic Crisis and European Institutions, provides those lessons. The book is based on research exploring how the Euro crisis was portrayed in the European press and the implications of that coverage on public understanding of the developments, their causes, the responsibilities for addressing the crisis, the roles and effectiveness of European institutions, and the implications for European integration and identity. These have implications for the ways Europeans talk about Europe and the issues it faces.

The most important findings from the study about the ways the Euro Crisis was portrayed are:

1. It is someone else’s problem

Overall the Euro Crisis has been portrayed as foreign story, rather than a European story or a domestic story. Even in countries with sovereign debt challenges it was portrayed as a foreign story, though partly as a domestic story. The framing of stories in media asserted others as the cause of the crisis and thus shifted the problem to others to solve. It was not talked about as a common problem needing common solutions.

Continue reading “How Europe talks about itself: Lessons from the Euro Crisis”