Legitimising Crisis-Induced Reforms in Vulnerable European Societies

Enduring economic crises exert strong pressure on political elites: in crisis periods the output legitimacy of democracy weakens, meanwhile constraints to implement cost-efficient policy reforms are increasing. Within the European Union, the global financial crisis and the subsequent European debt crisis made the task of legitimising crisis-induced reforms particularly stressful in the more vulnerable societies of Southern and Central-Eastern Europe that are also characterised by relatively lower levels of trust in political institutions. Combining European Social Survey data on political attitudes with datasets on quality of democracy and governance this paper compares how national contexts are shaping politics of crisis management in two subgroups of EU member states, the more versus the less vulnerable European societies. It first focuses on the period before the onset of global financial crisis through the lens of political trust and procedural fairness approach and sheds some light on the main distinguishing features of democratic legitimacy between more and less vulnerable EU members at a time of relative economic stability and prosperity. The study then explores the potential mechanisms that may trigger virtuous or vicious circles between institutional reforms and political legitimacy during the crisis period. Contrasting the substantive and procedural elements of legitimacy, the paper finally discusses some typical behavioural patterns of political elites in the more vulnerable European societies when they seek to legitimise crisis-induced reforms.