Eurozone Crisis as Democratic Deficit: Expert Opinions on Austerity measures in Ireland and Cyprus

This thesis investigates Eurozone crisis as an exemplary case of politicization of European Integration in a qualitative empirical study, by looking at the decision making processes leading to Cyprus‟ and Ireland‟s choice of austerity measures. . In doing that the thesis firstly conceptualizes austerity measures proposed during the Eurozone crises and provides a typology of the measures highlighted by the Eurogroup and the decision makers at the member state level. There is a huge debate on the drawbacks of the austerity policy; however the troubled countries are still applying the austerity program presented by the Troika. This thesis demonstrates that the Eurozone crisis provide further evidence of the politicization of the EU by applying process tracing and elite interviews technique as the chosen method for the thesis. Therefore, the acquired expert opinions on the subject in Ireland and Cyprus serve as the primary data of the thesis. Theories of the European Integration are reviewed in order to provide a theoretical framework for the thesis and to indicate the hypotheses derived from post-functionalism and liberal-intergovernmentalism theories. In light of the data collected it emerged that the Eurozone crises and its management in Ireland and Cyprus illustrate that the European Integration is politicized and there is a democratic deficit in the European Union since citizen involvement and negative public opinion were disregarded by decision makers. Key Words: Austerity, Euro-zone Crisis, Elite interviews, European Integration