The EU between technocratic and democratic legitimacy

Technocracy is a multidimensional concept which encompasses different types. This chapter focuses on citizens of Eurozone countries and their preferences for “systemic” technocracy and discusses the meaning of technocracy and how it has evolved in the European context. It presents a number of hypotheses about citizens’ views on technocracy in the Eurozone and among those countries where bailout programmes were implemented or that had technocratic governments within the Eurozone. The belief that the European Union (EU) or the International Monetary Fund are the best crisis managers serves as a proxy for support for the troika, and support for technocratic governance more broadly. The experience of having a technocratic government was associated with an increase in the odds of supporting technocracy in Greece and Italy. The impact which the rise in technocratic decision making has had for democratic legitimacy has been extensively discussed at the EU level.