Democratic Backsliding as a Challenge to EU Governance

Abstract

The panel tackles democratic backsliding among new EU member states and candidate countries as one of the key challenges to EU governance. It critically revisits the understanding of EU integration as a tool for democratization and questions the EU’s enduring ability to act as a transformative power in the enlargement region. Bringing together Europeanisation research with comparative democratisation literature, the panel provides a thorough conceptual discussion of the phenomenon of democratic backsliding and contributes to its further theorization. In empirical terms, it provides a comparative assessment of tendencies of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and Turkey. The aim of the panel is to offer a composite picture of the concrete manifestations of democratic backsliding as well as its implications for democracy and the rule of law at the EU level. The different papers highlight the conceptual and the empirical challenges posed by democratic backsliding in a comparative, cross-regional perspective that covers both the pre- and the post-accession dimensions.

Title	Details
The Strategic Use of Referenda on Integration	View Paper Details
Democratisation through European Integration Revisited: Is the EU an Actor Capable of Addressing Democratic Backsliding?	View Paper Details
Exploring the Nexus between De-Europeanisation and Autocratisation in Contemporary Europe	View Paper Details
Challenging EU Governance: Democratic Backsliding in the Enlargement Region	View Paper Details
The EU in Disequilibrium – From the Euro Crisis to a Crisis of Integration	View Paper Details