Abstract
This chapter starts from an apparent paradox. Key policy competences in economic governance have shifted to the supranational level within the European Union, since the Maastricht Treaty onwards. At the same time, calls and procedures for the national parliaments of member states to act up and provide scrutiny, accountability, and thus, legitimacy to EU policy-making have been on the rise. The surveillance role of the national parliaments, however, especially in the field of macro-economic policy, is rooted in an idealized vision of national parliaments. European integration has more often than not disempowered the parliaments of member states. Furthermore, we live in times of a profound crisis of party politics and a crisis of representation, with parliaments enjoying less and less trust from society. Both these developments trigger conflicts of sovereignty in national polities where different claims about where the final authority lies are clashing with each other. In the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, this has become particularly visible in Southern and Eastern Europe, where claims to popular sovereignty have strongly clashed with claims to parliamentary sovereignty. In the two paired comparisons analysed in this chapter—Greece and Slovenia, on one hand, Italy and Bulgaria, on the other—we interpret these sovereignty conflicts in a dialectic fashion: these conflicts are only caused by the weakening of parliaments, they also contribute to their further weakening, and therefore, further impeding their role of scrutiny in European multilevel governance. Against this background, a specific political praxis—identified as technopopulism—is gaining strength. Technopopulists, we find, invoke popular sovereignty to weaken parliaments and invoke parliamentary sovereignty to ignore the people. Ultimately, both popular and parliamentary sovereignty remain trapped in a technopopulist loop that not only reflects new conflicts of sovereignty but also exacerbates them, leading to a state of permanent crisis of democratic legitimacy.
This output was supported by the NPO “Systemic Risk Institute” number LX22NPO5101, funded by the European Union—Next Generation EU (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, NPO: EXCELES).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Badiou, A., Butler, J., Didi-Huberman, G., Khiari, S., Rancière, J., & Bourdieu, P. (2016). What is a people? Columbia University Press.
Bellamy, R., & Kröger, S. (2014, April). Domesticating the democratic deficit? The Role of National Parliaments and Parties in the EU’s System of Governance. Parliamentary Affairs, 67(2), 437–457. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gss045
Bergman, M. E. (2020, September 14). Italy’s constitutional referendum: yet another reform to improve the country’s governability. LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) blog. Blog Entry.
Bickerton, C. (2009). From Brezhnev to Brussels: Transformations of Sovereignty in Eastern Europe. International Politics, 46(6), 732–752. Palgrave Macmillan, 1384–5748.
Bickerton, C. (2012). European Integration: From Nation-States to Member States. Oxford University Press.
Bickerton, C. (2016). The European Union: A Citizen’s Guide. Pelican Books.
Bickerton, C., & Brack, N. (2022). Implementing the will of the people: Sovereignty and policy conflicts in the aftermath of the UK’s referendum on EU membership. Comparative European Politics, 20, 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-022-00271-y
Bickerton, C. & Accetti, C. I. (2021). Technopopulism: The new logic of democratic politics. Oxford University Press.
Bickerton, C., Brack, N., Coman, R., & Crespy, A. (2022). Unravelling sovereignty conflicts in an era of politicization. Comparative European Politics.
Biezen, I., & Kopecky, P. (2014). The Cartel Party and the State: Party–State Linkages in European Democracies. Party Politics, 170–182.
Blokker, P. (2016). “Vote Yes for a Safe Italy” or “Vote No to Defend the Constitution”: Italian constitutional politics between majoritarianism and civil resistance. Verfassungs Blog. On Matters Constitutional.
Borbáth, E., & Gessler, T. (2020). Different worlds of contention? Protest in Northwestern, Southern and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Political Research, 59.
BPSA Open Letter. (2016). 30 пoлитoлoзи cpeщy пpeдлoжeнaтa oт Cлaви Tpифoнoв мaжopитapнa cиcтeмa. https://offnews.bg/izbori/30-politolozi-sreshtu-predlozhenata-ot-slavi-trifonov-mazhoritarna-sis-639159.html
Brack, N., Coman, R., & Crespy, A. (2019). Unpacking old and new conflicts of sovereignty in the European polity. Journal of European Integration, 41(7), 817–832.
Bruszt, L., & Vukov, V. (2017). Making states for the single market: European integration and the reshaping of economic states in the Southern and Eastern peripheries of Europe. West European Politics, 40(4), 663–687.
Ceccarini, L., & Bordignon, F. (2017). Referendum on Renzi: The 2016 Vote on the Italian Constitutional Revision. South European Society and Politics, 22(3), 281–302.
Coman, R., & Leconte, C. (2019). Contesting EU authority in the name of European identity: The new clothes of the sovereignty discourse in Central Europe. Journal of European Integration, 41(7), 855–870.
Crespy, A., & Ladi, S. (2019). In the name of ‘the people’? Popular sovereignty and the 2015 Greek referendum. Journal of European Integration, 41(7), 871–885.
Crespy, A., & Rone, J. (2022). Conflicts of sovereignty over EU trade policy: A new constitutional settlement? Comparative European Politics, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-022-00272-x
Crum, B. (2018). Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: What role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance? Journal of European Public Policy, 25(2), 268–286.
Della Porta, D. (2020). How social movements can save democracy: Democratic innovations from below. Polity.
Fink-Hafner, D. (2011). Interest representation and post-communist parliaments over two decades. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 17(2), 215–233.
Fink-Hafner, D. (2014). Post-accession politicization of national EU policy coordination: The case of Slovenia. Public Administration, 92(1), 39–54.
Gagyi, A. (2015). Social movement studies for East Central Europe? The challenge of a time-space bias on postwar western societies. Social Movements and Contentious Politics in Central and Eastern Europe, 1(3).
Gerbaudo, P. (2017) The mask and the flag. Populism, citizenism and global protest. Hurst Publishers.
Gerbaudo, P. (2022). The great recoil. Verso.
Grabbe, H. (2014). Six Lessons of Enlargement Ten Years On: The EU’s Transformative Power in Retrospect and Prospect. Article in JCMS Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12174
Guasti, P., & Buštíková, L. (2020). Varieties of technocratic populism around the world. Politics and Governance, 8(4).
Habermas, J. (2015). The lure of techocracy. Polity Press.
Halikiopoulou, D. (2020). Economic crisis, poor governance and the rise of populism: The case of Greece. Intereconomics, 34–37.
Hay, C. (2007). Why we hate politics. Polity Press.
Jacobs, K., Akkerman, A., & Zaslove, A. (2018). The voice of populist people? Referendum preferences, practices and populist attitudes. Acta Politica, 53, 517–541.
Kirschgaessner, S. (2016). After Trump victory, Italy referendum is seen as test of populism's rise. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/24/after-trump-victory-italy-referendum-is-seen-as-test-of-populisms-rise
Lipset, S. M., & Stein, R. (1967). Party systems and voter alignments: Cross-national perspectives. Free Press.
Maatsch, A. (2015). Empowered or disempowered? The role of national parliaments during the reform of European economic governance, MPIfG Discussion Paper, No. 15/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne.
Maatsch, A., & Cooper, I. (2017). Governance without democracy? Analysing the role of parliaments in European economic governance after the crisis: Introduction to the special issue. Parliamentary Affairs, 70, 645–654.
Majone, G. (1994). The rise of the regulatory state in Europe. West European Politics, 17(3).
Matej, A., & Cernic, J. L. (2020). The impact of European institutions on the rule of law and democracy: Slovenia and beyond. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Mair, P. (2005). Party system change approaches and interpretations. Clarendon Press.
Mair, P. (2006). Ruling the Void. The Hollowing of Western Democracy, New Left Review, 42, 25–51.
Mair, P. (2013). Ruling the void: The hollowing of Western democracy. Verso.
Malova, D., & Haughton, T. (2002). Making Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Impact of Europe. West European Politics, 25, 101–120.
Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Muller, J.-W. (2012). Beyond militant democracy? New Left Review, 73(43–4), 39–47.
Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.
Pasquino, G., & Valbruzzi, M. (2017). Italy says no: The 2016 constitutional referendum and its consequences. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 22(2), 145–162.
Piquer, J., & Jäger, A. M. M. (2020). After the Cartel Party: ‘Extra-Party’ and ‘Intra-Party’ Techno-Populism. Politics and Governance, 533–544.
Popov, S. (2021). Cyвepeн тyк, cyвepeн тaм. Кaквo e вcъщнocт “cyвepeн”? https://www.svobodnaevropa.bg/a/31434009.html
Raik, K. (2004). EU Accession of Central and Eastern European Countries: Democracy and Integration as Conflicting Logics. East European Politics and Societies, 18,(4), 567–594.
Roederer-Rynning, C. (2017). Parliamentary assertion and deep integration: The European parliament in the CETA and TTIP negotiations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 30(5–6), 507–526.
Roederer-Rynning, C., & Kallestrup, M. (2017). National parliaments and the new contentiousness of trade. Journal of European Integration, 39(7), 811–825.
Rone, J. (2020). Contesting free trade and austerity in the EU: Protest diffusion in complex media and political economies. Routledge.
Rone, J. (2021). Backsliding of the left: Or how Viktor Orbán’s right-wing conservative illiberalism emerged as a normative ideal in Bulgarian political discourse. European Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2021.1956239
Rone, J. (2022). Instrumentalising sovereignty claims in British pro- and anti-Brexit mobilisations. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221089136
Rosanvallon, P. (2008). Counter-democracy. Politics in an age of distrust. Cambridge University Press.
Rosanvallon, P. (2011). Democratic legitimacy: Impartiality, reflexivity, proximity. Princeton University Press.
Schmidt, V. A. (2006). Democracy in Europe: The EU and national polities. Oxford.
Skazlic, I. (2021). Routine or rare activity? A quantitative assessment of parliamentary scrutiny in the European semester. Politics and Governance, 9(3), 112–123.
Stoychev, S. (2017). The 2016 referendum in Bulgaria. East European Quarterly, 45(3–4), 187–194.
Taggart, P. (2002). Populism and the pathology of representative politics. In Y. Mény & Y. Surel (Eds.), Democracies and the populist challenge (pp. 62–80). Palgrave Macmillan.
Topaloff, L. (2017). The rise of referendums: Elite strategy or populist weapon? Journal of Democracy, 28(3), 127–140.
Tudzarovska, E. (2021). Legitimation strategies and national parliaments. The case of anti-corruption. In Lord, Christopher et al. (Eds.), The Politics of Legitimation in the European Union, Legitimacy Recovered?. Routledge.
Urbinati, N. (2020). Me the people: How populism transforms democracy. Harvard University Press.
Varoufakis, Y. (2017). Adults in the room: My battle with Europe’s deep establishment. Penguin Books.
Willkinson, M. (2021). Tranformation of modern Europe. Cambridge University Press.
White, J. (2020). Politics of last resort: Governing by emergency in the European union. Oxford University Press.
White, J. (2021). Politics of the last resort. Cambridge University Press.
Woźniakowski, T., Maatsch, A., & Miklin, E. (2021). Rising to a challenge? Ten years of parliamentary accountability of the European semester. Politics and Governance, 9(3), 96–99.
Yates, L. (2021). Prefigurative politics and social movement strategy: The roles of prefiguration in the reproduction, mobilisation and coordination of movements. Political Studies, 69(4), 1033–1052.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tudzarovska, E., Rone, J. (2023). The Technocratic Populist Loop: Clashes Between Parliamentary and Popular Sovereignty in EU’s Eastern and Southern Periphery. In: Rone, J., Brack, N., Coman, R., Crespy, A. (eds) Sovereignty in Conflict. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27729-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27729-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-27728-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-27729-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)