The latest Democracy Index 2024 snapshot of the state of democracy in 165 independent states showed that democracy is not working for large numbers of citizens around the world. The growing consensus is that governments and political parties in many democracies have become estranged from citizens and as a consequence are no longer responsive to their concerns. At the same time there is less clarity about why people are so disenchanted with their democracies.
My recent research shows that the legacy of EU economic governance since the 1970s and the weakening of party politics amidst the rise of the neoliberal doctrine have led to the rise of populism and technocracy in the contemporary Europe, reflecting the rise of the citizens’ dissatisfaction. The EU’s institutional re-design and the transfer of competencies to non-majoritarian institutions, formalized with the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, were consolidated in the 1990s predicated on the success of the new right in mobilizing widespread perceptions of a crisis and un-governability.
The subordination of the human or social purposes of governance to the logic of an impersonal market is the biggest flaw in the market liberalism.
This was seen as a ‘proper’ response to societal problems and mitigation of crises, under the context of the significant political and economic changes taking place in Europe in the post-1989 period, and the accession of the new Central and Eastern European (CEE) post-communist states. This institutionalization of neoliberalism has set new common trajectory for both Western and Eastern European societies, albeit their historical differences in the economic planning, political structuring and societal regimes.
The way in which this institutionalization took place, has affected the disenchantment between the citizens and their democracies, now present both in the Western and Eastern European societies. This convergence towards the same goal: the neoliberal doctrine in the post-1989 period has led to the rise of anti-system politics and varieties of technopopulism, reflecting how the dislodging of the traditional political parties and their parliamentary functions in favor of ‘technocratism’, has become persistent challenge to democratic legitimacy in the contemporary EU.
Unmediated Politics and the Neoliberal Objective
The restructuring of the European integration project initiated in the 1970s and pushed through by bypassing democratic institutions or democratic control when necessary, resulted in a constellation of new neoliberal institutional arrangements.
The consequences of the populism, technocracy or combined both, are now evident in variety of forms.
The idea was to transfer mandates to non-majoritarian bodies to respond to societal problems and for the independence of the European Central Bank (ECB) to become a requirement for membership in the European single currency was also an idea introduced in the 1970.
The logic was for macroeconomic policy-making to be pushed towards the use of expertise, to bind the hands of profligate governments and to kept policy decisions outside the reach of politics.
This new method of governability has been seen as an alternative to the state’s weak capacity to hold in check the ‘demands’ of social groups, justified by the worldwide economic recession, the falling rate of profit and exhausted national class compromises between trade unions and employers’ associations.
The mobilization of the economic elites claiming their scientific independence and authority was justified on the need of adaptation to the new corporatist agendas without state enforcement, as Charles Maier has extensively elaborated in his recent book. These were the early practices of an ‘unmediated politics’ between states and their citizens, which then took their own turn during the institutionalization of neoliberalism, leading to the “no-other alternative” logic.
Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Political Representation
By the late 1980s, the parties’ capacities to resolve the growing tensions between market-driven logic and the collective’ representation weakened, as well as their capacity to govern and deliver on predictability, consistency, party’ responsibilities or accountability, as the late Peter Mair has found.
The collective identities and attachments to political parties weakened, while the national parliaments or the trade unions’ coping capacities to deal with the persistent rise of the technocratic power, further undermined the social contract between the citizens and their societies. The push towards the neoliberal agenda meant that states’ commitments to the new monetary union and the wider macroeconomic agenda of price stability, budgetary austerity and reforms of public-sector institutions should escape criticism and public debate in national parliaments.
At the beginning of the 1990s this became evident both in Western and Eastern societies, including in Sweden, Austria and then conveniently embraced by the other post-communist states, as part of the EU accession processes. With the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, the emergence of neoliberalism and the specific transformations in Eastern Europe met at the same point in the post-1989 period as part of the neoliberal doctrine.
This logic of economization of politics, or the ‘commodification’ of capital for market purposes via political means Karl Polanyi has rightfully identified as the biggest threat to the social purposes of governance, long before this ‘no other alternative’ type of democratic legitimation, leading to perpetual crises of representation in the contemporary societies.
The Legacy of Karl Polanyi in the Contemporary Context
Karl Polanyi’s seminal book “The Great Transformation” published in 1944 exposed how the subordination of the human or social purposes of governance to the logic of an impersonal market is the biggest flaw in the market liberalism, standing as the earliest and most powerful critiques of unregulated markets, with consequences were are witnessing today.
By tracing the history of capitalism from the great transformation of the industrial revolution onwards, he showed that there has been nothing ‘natural’ about the market state and that the use of the labour, land and money as commodities of resources to serve the ‘self-regulating’ market, is not natural as the self-regulation is fictional. Instead, Polanyi saw that the economy must be embedded within societies, in order to deliver on prosperity and growth.
On a contrary, the neoliberal doctrine expressed in the mantra that democratic politics should not extend to economic affairs in the post-war Europe, justified the dismantling of the working class and its trade unions and political parties as a threat to the accumulation of capital.
As result, the state’s commitments towards the wider macroeconomic agenda of price stability, budgetary austerity and discussions on the reforms of public-sector institutions, were escaped from criticism and public debate.
This also shown to be convenient for the CEE countries, embracing the opportunity for EU membership, led by cadre elites within state institutions. At the same time, a culture of secrecy was growing in both West and East, not only as a legacy of the Cold War but also due to the need to classify information to avoid scrutiny of decision-making.
From Neoliberal Doctrine to Populist Disillusionment
Since the 1990s, the popular disaffection with the performance of government has been founding its expression in an anti-incumbent backlash and rising support for populist insurgents.
The shortcomings in the way representative democracy works nowadays, has taken roots even since and today we are witnessing a perpetual rise of populism and populist actors with a promise to solve the societal problems directly speaking to the domestic audiences.
Challenging this status quo is however an impossible task, and further exposes the fragility of the representative democracies, leading to perpetual crisis management mode, and unpredictability in the delivery of long-term commitments towards the citizens. This creates fertile conditions for the rise of populist movements and new leaders to invent and re-invent new strategies for winning elections.
Populism, Technocracy and the Fragility of Representative Democracies
In contemporary context, the consequences of the populism, technocracy or combined both, are now evident in variety of forms. The unmediated ways of doing politics, is now linked to vote‐seeking strategies, where populist movements and leaders, usually with no previous political attachment to political parties are taking power in the national parliaments.
At the last German elections, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has doubled its support in just four years to 20.8%, and has spread out from its support base in the east to become the second biggest political force in parliament. Using TikTok as main social media campaign, Alice Weidel has even surpassed Heidi Reichinnek, Die Linke’s co-chair in her popularity on social media. Reichinnek was relatively unknown in the German politics until January 2025, but ever since, she become a political force.
In France, the 29-year-old Jordan Bardella also using TikTok electoral strategy: has become the fresh-faced figurehead of France’s National Rally party and is now poised to inherit one of the most electorally successful far-right machines in Europe. When the French President Emmanuel Macron won the elections in 2017, had never fought an election campaign at any level, local, regional, national or European.
Instead, his political background was confined to that of leading adviser to President Hollande from 2012 to 2014, then as Economic Minister under Prime Minister Manuel Valls from 2014 to 2016. Macron’s campaign in 2017 included establishment of popular movement, En Marche, heavily relying on the use and presence in the mainstream and social media network. During his second term, despite his pragmatic approach, President Macron is struggling to solve the chronic nature of high unemployment in France, representing a distinctive weakness of the French economy, especially after giving up the advantages of flexible exchange rates, since the introduction of Europe’s monetary union in 1999.
In Italy, Giorgia Meloni was elected Prime Minister in the Italian General Elections in 2022. A key feature of her campaign and her interactions with the public since has been her use of social media, especially TikTok. Her style was to reflect a communication strategy aimed at instilling optimism and confidence in its supporters, and with the same approach, she has advocated pragmatism in her talks with President Trump to “make the West great again”.
This might mean budget-planning concerning the defence-spending, while much of Meloni’s fiscal legroom, meanwhile, has been limited to EU funds earmarked for post-pandemic recovery programs, which have been disbursed more slowly than expected. Pushing towards new targets on NATO defence spending can narrow the available funds further, and possibly can lay the groundwork for a new painful round of austerity.
Crisis Management and the Politics of Un-Politics
The use of EU decision‐making to mobilise domestic audiences or build electoral strategies by populist governments is however not new or limited to one country. In the case of Hungary, Viktor Orbán has introduced unlimited emergency powers by violating FIDESZ’s illiberal Fundamental Law using the context of the pandemic. The examples of this sort of management of crises and doing politics are many.
As managers of crises, these leaders promise to solve citizens’ expectations, as much is necessary, while at the same time the participation usually remains sub contracted at huge costs to private consultants justified on the ground of their expertise, or by using the EU decision-making in order to advance their agendas. Ruled by un-politics, this can mean rejecting formal and informal rules of decision‐making, if these were not conducive to their preferred outcome.
It can also mean rejecting traditional means of ensuring compromises, or rejecting solutions to perpetuate crises. Finally, the ongoing citizens’ discontent continues to feed the populist trap, while the populist leaders and the technocratic decision-making remain to testify the key challenges to representative democracies in the contemporary context.
