How the debate about the ECB debt cancellation differs from older (and much older) ones

Abstract

In the last decade, a debate on the influence of public debt on political regimes has (re)emerged. Public debt scholars have rallied around two opposing projects: many of them advocate for constitutional constraints, while some denounce the market debt as a threat to the welfare state. In 2020 and 2021, a fierce debate occurred among the second group concerning the cancellation of European public debt held by the European Central Bank. This article suggests that the restrainers, the cancellationists, and the anti-cancellationists consider, for different reasons, that representative democracy and sovereign debt could be a deadly threat to each other.