Political Choice and Constraints Imposed By Financial Markets – Understanding the Nexus of National Executives, Parliaments and Citizens in European Union Decision-Making at Times of Crisis

The European Union’s (EU) responses to the economic and financial crisis reflected how policy options and therefore political choice got constrained by financial market pressure. Despite increasing attention for the role of national parliaments during the euro crisis a more theoretically informed perspective on the interaction of national and EU-level executives, technocrats, parliaments and citizens is still lacking from the literature. By referring to an adapted concept of European political citizenship this paper offers a fresh perspective on the problem. Combining insights from the political economy, governance and citizenship literatures it is argued that political citizenship is essentially about the ability to make informed political choices. The paper establishes a link between financial market developments and constraints on political citizenship. It points to the central role of transnational technocratic elites in interpreting financial market developments during the crisis and empirically traces the link between technocrats, national and EU executives, parliamentarians and citizens. To this end the paper sums up preliminary findings of a comparative empirical research conducted in a pilot study on selected euro area countries.