As often pointed out in the literature on the European debt crisis, the policy program of austerity and internal devaluation imposed on countries in the Eurozone’s periphery, exhibits a lack of democratic legitimacy. This article analyses the consequences for support for democracy in Europe both at the national and European level. We show that through the policies of economic adjustment, a majority of citizens in crisis countries has become ‘detached’ from their democratic political system. By cutting loose the Eurozone’s periphery from the rest of Europe in terms of democratic legitimacy, the Euro has divided the union, instead of uniting it as foreseen by its architects. Our results are based on aggregated Eurobarometer surveys conducted in 28 EU member states between 2002 and 2014. We employ quantitative time-series cross-sectional regression analyses. Moreover, we estimate the causal effect of economic adjustment in a comparative case study of four cases using the synthetic control method.
