After the Second World War, a centrist political
consensus in western European nations made elections polite affairs. The issues involved
were relatively mundane. The solutions were pragmatic.
After all,
existential regime changes, which are often matters of life and death, were not
at stake. But that may be changing, and when that happens, elections become a
form of warfare – often including actual violence.
All this is
affecting the future of the European Union, which emerged in the 1950s as a
modest six-nation economic vehicle.
Back
then, political elites could count on the passive consent of their populations
as long as the peoples in the common market could regard it as being in their
economic interests.
But as the
decades passed it gradually became much more than that. After the collapse of
east European communism and with the entry of many new members, the EU began to
consider itself a community of values, and decided to become an ever-closer
union among its peoples and member states.
But these post-national
ideals are now being challenged by state nationalism. The estrangement from
politics in a Brussels run by technocrats has left the ordinary voter keenly
aware of the democratic deficit.
The 2008
financial crisis deepened these divisions. All over Europe the economic recession
brought about social anxiety and opportunities for populist anti-globalization
parties to reach supporters and voters.
The refugee
crisis and the growing threat of terrorism led to a search for more security at
the national level, while the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom illustrated the
disenchantment with EU politics. For “leavers,” the EU had become a hyper-bureaucratic
pseudo-superstate.
This has led
to claims by national governments to defend their self-determination. Populist nationalism
on the far right has significantly increased across the continent.
These forces
capitalize on anti-globalization and perceived threats of multiculturalism,
immigration and political corruption. Even Hillary Clinton has suggested
immigration was inflaming voters in Europe and helping right-wing populists.
A gulf now exists at the European level between the opinion
of national electorates, on the one
hand, and the policies adopted by EU technocrats to solve pressing problems, on
the other.
As the German philosopher
Jurgen Habermas stated back in 2013, “national citizens see their political
fate being determined by foreign governments who represent the interests of
other nations, rather than by a government that is bound only by their own
democratic vote.”
A recent example is the threat by the EU to punish Italy,
which is now led by populist and anti-establishment forces, for flouting EU
fiscal rules by insisting on a heavy-spending budget that fails to bring down
the country’s burdensome debt.
“With what the Italian government has put on the table, we
see a risk of the country sleepwalking into instability,” said Valdis
Dombrovskis, the European Commission vice president.
That’s what empires do: they penalize recalcitrant
regions. But willItaly and other European states say “enough is enough” and
rebel?
No comments:
Post a Comment