CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Varhegyi, Petra |
|---|---|
| Title | Public Perception Of The EU's Crisis Management Performance: The Case Of The Coronavirus Pandemic |
| Summary | The coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on the every-day life of European citizens. People’s personal and work environment were transformed, and certain restriction measures had to be introduced top down in order to keep everyone safe and healthy. Crisis management requires expertise, decisive action, proper funding, institutional support, and well-organised logistics. No matter whether national governments and EU institutions decided on the curtailing of civil liberties or on the prioritisation of the economy, at the end of the day, citizens’ attitude towards decision-makers has been influenced by the crisis and the values and principles of the political system have been challenged. This thesis examines why some people were satisfied with the EU’s crisis management performance while others less so. The existing public perception literature argues that European citizens have pre-existing beliefs about the EU and about the role it plays in crises. It is believed that these attitudes can explain satisfaction with the EU’s crisis management performance and that these can be defined through three explanatory variables: readiness to increase the decision-making power and the means of the EU and trust in the European executive. To measure public perception, the 2020 standard Eurobarometer cross-country survey data is used. Interviews were conducted from July to August 2020. Approximately 27 000 participants’ responses are analysed to understand public satisfaction with the EU’s crisis management performance. The significance of this research is twofold: on the one hand, the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic challenge the fundamental values of the EU, and, on the other hand, the pandemic’s potential consequences can potentially impact European (dis-) integration, Euroscepticism and the return of “big government”. The results are useful for both policy-makers and researchers interested in public opinion and invested in the idea of the potential enlargement of the EU’s competencies to manage salient events and to become a powerful crisis manager in the future. |
| Supervisor | Angelova, Mariyana |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/varhegyi_petra.pdf |
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