Jan-Werner Müller in The Guardian: 'How Europe could face its own shutdown'

Network member Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton) has published this new piece in The Guardian of obvious relevance to transatlantic conversations.  The first two paragraphs are below and the remainder can be read here.

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Europeans have been stunned and dismayed by the shutdown and near-default of the United States. Perhaps they even felt some schadenfreude. After all, European leaders have been held to ridicule and contempt for their global brinkmanship over the dysfunctional eurozone in recent years – time and again taking their economies to the cliff, only to pull back just before the markets opened.

Yet Europe might be in for its own version of a shutdown – less dramatic than the US government one, to be sure, but with similar causes. Just as the Tea Party has turned Congress into a paralysed, self-hating institution, an alliance of anti-European Union parties could give Europe its own version of "gridlock" if they win enough of the popular vote in next year's European elections. European elites – and any citizen who cares about the fate of the EU – better start thinking about that scenario. [continue reading here]