European periphery crises, international financial markets, and democracy: moving towards a globalized neofeudalism?

Abstract

This paper analyzes the origin and causes of the recent economic and financial crises, mainly for the countries located in the periphery of the European Union (EU), as well as their evolution and transformation into social, political, and institutional crises. After explaining the differential impact of the crises on EU member economies and critically analysing the unsuccessful orthodox neoclassical policies implemented by governments and international institutions to try to manage and resolve them, we propose some alternative economic policy measures for the EU. Furthermore, we analyze how the economic policies developed thus far not only are unable to resolve the current crisis pattern but also actually entail a risk to the present democratic models by transferring the legitimate control over governments from citizens and democratic parliaments to unelected, non-representative international financial markets.