About

After years of hesitation, the European Union (EU) has finally recognized democratic backsliding as one of its biggest challenges and has become more assertive. Research on (countering) democratic backsliding is growing quickly, but mostly focused on either domestic causes of backsliding or EU-level accounts of counter-measures. What is systematically neglected is the link between both levels: the domestic politics before and after the EU takes action. The domestic politics of EU action against democratic backsliding, as understood in this project, consist of domestic party positions and arguments on EU action and their effects on citizens’ attitudes. Our basic assumption is that the EU’s ability to act and to have an impact against member state backsliding crucially depends on domestic political support. 

Consequently, our project addresses the following research questions: Which political parties support and oppose EU action against backsliding and why (step 1)? Which effects do these party-political arguments have on citizens’ attitudes regarding EU action against backsliding (step 2)? To analyze political parties' relative support for and opposition to EU actions as well as the arguments they rely upon to substantiate their positions, we will rely on texts such as protocols of parliamentary debates. These texts will be analyzed relying on automated text analysis as well as manual coding strategies. The effects of parties' cues and frames on citizens' evaluation of EU actions against backsliding will be identified with survey experiments. Finally, to learn more about political actors' motives and strategic choices, we will rely on interviews with personnel of political parties that the project identifies as having played a key role in the domestic politics of EU actions against backsliding.     

Apart from its novel focus on the link between EU action and domestic politics, this projects also goes beyond existing research regarding its empirical scope. Our country selection comprises Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia. The project thus covers not only the “usual suspects” of backsliding EU member states, but also domestic politics in EU member states that are democratically stable (“non-backsliding states”), threatened by democratic backsliding (“potential backsliding states”), and seeking to re-establish democratic principles (“potential recovering states”). The project’s results will be of academic and societal relevance, as they will improve our understanding of how the EU can contribute to countering autocratic developments in EU member states and thereby facilitate democratic stability in Europe.