The dissertation is a multi-method study on current and common challenges to liberal democracy facing governments and societies on both sides of the Atlantic, with a particular emphasis on disaffection with democracy in Europe. It examines the factors that have led to disaffected publics in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Greece, by looking at political and economic developments that unfolded over the last decade including the Eurozone and Greek crisis, the Trump Presidency and the Brexit vote to leave the EU. By looking closely at these events, a number of factors are put in the forefront of analysis, such as globalization, European integration, domestic party politics and populism, and the rise of authoritarian politics. The dissertation draws evidence from a large pool of public opinion data on a number of issues relating to the quality of government and democracy, in-depth interviews with high-ranking officials and political actors in Brussels and Athens, discourse analysis of political statements and party manifestos, and employs literature underpinning the concepts applied in the research as analytical frameworks. Looking at the discontent relating to democracy in three particular contexts, the following insights can be drawn: public disaffection in the United States is primarily attributed to factors such as the indirect effects of globalization. However, further research shows that globalization has been more of a populist narrative taken out of its real context and consequences to garner further political support for populist leaders both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Public disaffection in United Kingdom is seemingly stemming from the perceived disadvantages of EU membership, and its connection to global economic forces. Hence anti-establishment politics, and nationalist populism turn out to be major factors contributing to disaffection and help explain voters’ attitudes both regarding the Brexit vote and the Trump Presidency. Finally, the Greek case sharply illustrates how all of these factors have been at play during the management of the Greek economic crisis adding to further delegitimization of the European project. This was on the one hand manifested by the EU’s turn to neoliberal economic policy and neoliberal globalization, austerity politics, and the dismantling of the welfare state following the IMF’s economic prescriptions. On the other hand, what makes Greece distinct is its particularly troubled past of adversarial politics pertaining to the country’s political system, state and reform capacity, and not least the special character of the relationship between citizens and the political class, which has been traditionally marked by low levels of trust towards political parties and national governments. In this context, both the effects of the economic crisis and crisis management across the national and supranational context, further contributed to the citizens’ disaffection with democracy in Greece. / 2023-09-01T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/42971 |
| Date | 02 September 2021 |
| Creators | Christodoulaki, Ioanna |
| Contributors | Stone, John, Citi, Manuele |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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