Democratisation through European Integration Revisited: Is the EU an Actor Capable of Addressing Democratic Backsliding?

This paper revisits the discussion about integration into the EU as a distinct mode of democratization. Revisiting the role the EU has played in different arenas of democracy promotion (Dimitrova and Pridham 2005): the international, transnational and domestic arenas and discussing the different mechanisms at play, the paper argues that European integration has represented a broad, but thin form of democracy promotion. As with all aspects of European integration, elites have been engaged, while citizens and society as a whole have been assumed to move along with elites in their socialization and responses to EU incentives. After EU conditionality has lost its power on elites post accession, domestic discourses, institutional arrangements and socio-economic conditions reassert themselves and may produce different kind of dynamics, less conducive to democratic consolidation. The EU’s ability to affect these domestic societal dynamics is and should remain limited. The EU can and should strive to affect domestic debates on what democracy is and should be. Therefore, the paper argues, we should not expect the EU to address democratic backsliding through short term incentives or sanctions. Socialization at a broader scale, however, through cross European debates and communicative discourses (Schmidt 2006), may be able to change societal norms and support democratic principles and societal norms in member states in a more sustainable way.