Why do democratic institutions struggle to maintain their vitality and legitimacy in hard times? In this special issue of Government and Opposition, we identify a loss of solidarity as the root cause of Western political dysfunction over the past decade. The argument is developed in four parts. The first part is theoretical insofar as it sketches the causal mechanism that describes what we mean by democratic dysfunction. Here we set out some of the key concepts that are central to our project. The second part is empirical insofar as it offers four negative illustrations of the fundamental problématique, which gives us the opportunity to suggest why this collection of research articles is relevant to the contemporary debate on democracy and its discontents. The third part explores the many possible sources of democratic dysfunction, which we have organized around two thematic clusters. Here we introduce the other articles in our special issue. The fourth and last part suggests implications of living in a democratic world with waning solidarity, allowing us to draw preliminary conclusions and suggest avenues for future research.

This article argues for a radical recasting of the European Union democratic deficit debate. Critics have long argued that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit and that growing EU power undermines national democracy. But recent backsliding on democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and Poland reminds us that grave democratic deficits can also exist at the national level in member states and that the EU may have a role in addressing them. This article will place the EU’s struggles with democratic deficits in its member states in comparative perspective, drawing on the experience of other democracies that have struggled with pockets of subnational authoritarianism. Comparative analysis suggests that considerations driven by partisan politics may allow local pockets of autocracy to persist within otherwise democratic political unions.

This article argues that the integration of financial assistance capacity in the eurozone, which was meant to remedy institutional shortcomings and mitigate the distributional implications of financial support in the European Monetary Union (EMU), has instead contributed to a deepening of the existing political cleavages and the creation of new ones. This dysfunctional effect reflects the empowerment of some national parliaments in decisions on financial assistance. These arguments are tested against the empirical examination of the negotiations of the three adjustment programmes for Greece. Specifically, the article shows that negotiations moved towards the radicalization of creditors’ positions and increased divisions between creditors in conjunction with the development of financial assistance capacity. While advancing its theses, the article strikes a note of caution regarding the argument that the empowerment of national parliaments in EU policymaking is one of the most powerful antidotes to its legitimacy deficit and thus a safeguard for the integration project.

The euro crisis brought back a widening gap in prosperity between the eurozone’s core and periphery members, but also revealed a divergence in the strength of its national democracies. This article examines the amplified tension between progressively uprooted national markets governed by a supranational technocracy and nationally organized democratic politics in the eurozone’s periphery. Building on Dani Rodrik’s globalization ‘trilemma’, this article explains the weakening of national democratic institutions in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy since 2008. While the periphery states were forced to choose monetary integration at the expense of both democracy and sovereignty, this trade-off was mostly absent in the core. The eurozone’s policy solutions to the crisis did not allow for any democratic input, were implemented through opaque and often-undemocratic throughput processes, and resulted in deteriorating output. The article concludes that the EU crisis response made euro membership in the periphery less compatible with national democratic principles.

This article considers the utility of emigration figures for signalling political dysfunction in Europe. If given a choice, most people would prefer not to leave friends, family and homes in order to find work. By assuming that international migration is more of a burden than a freedom, international migration patterns can help us distinguish between politically successful and politically dysfunctional states. This approach is first applied to international refugees and migrants to the EU, then used to study internal EU migrant flows. In doing this, it creates two sets of rankings (in overall and per capita terms) for Europe’s most and least successful states. Included among the most dysfunctional states in Europe are Romania, Lithuania, Ireland, Croatia and Latvia. It would seem as though policymakers in these states are unable to satisfy their constituents’ needs.

Are ‘grand coalitions’ – coalitions that include the two largest parties in a parliamentary system – good or bad for democracy? This article analyses that question in light of the recent rise of populist parties that large mainstream parties may try to exclude from government by forming grand coalitions with other large mainstream parties. I call this the ‘sterilization’ logic and note that mainstream parties’ ability to do this varies widely. Where parties have previously used grand coalitions primarily according to a ‘clientelistic’ logic – for example, Austria – mainstream parties may well be unable to rally the party system against insurgent populist challengers. Where mainstream parties have used grand coalitions exceptionally and for major institutional ‘renovations’ – for example, Germany – the grand coalition remains a viable option for responding to insurgent challenges, though this strategy is also quite risky. This article considers the implications for democracy by tracing recent developments in the context of the euro crisis and the European refugee situation. The major empirical referents are Austria and Germany – two countries with extensive experience and literature about grand coalitions – but the article draws out the implications of the analysis for other European parliamentary contexts.

Why, many Americans rightly ask, can material racial inequality and widespread segregation still persist 50 years after the enactment of key civil rights legislation and eight years after the election of an African American to the nation’s highest office? Many from outside the US pose similar questions about modern America. The explanation, I argue, lies with inconsistent and fluctuating levels of federal engagement to building material racial equality. National engagement fluctuates because it is energetically resisted and challenged by opponents of racial progress. This vulnerability to disruption is exposed by varying strategies of resistance, some fiscal, some violent, some judicial, some desultory and some combining violent protest against change with local electoral triumphs for anti-reformers. Public resistance to employing national resources to reduce inequality encouraged a de-racialization strategy amongst many African American candidates for elected office who opt to de-emphasize issues of racial inequality in campaigns and in office. Whatever the means, the effect is uniform: the slowing down or outright death of federal civil rights activism.