The EU's Authoritarian Equilibrium: From Democratic Deficit to Autocracy Surplus

Many scholars used to worry that EU institutions were insufficiently democratic. Now a far greater concern is that some member state governments are excessively authoritarian. Ironically, efforts to address the democratic deficit by politicising the EU have facilitated the rise of authoritarianism in EU member states. The problem is not that the EU has become too politicised; rather, the problem is that the EU is trapped in a mid-range authoritarian equilibrium, with enough politicisation to encourage EU-level partisan allies of national autocrats to protect them, but with too little politicisation to enable partisan opponents of those autocrats to help dislodge them.