While examining the efforts of the European Union to halt democratic backsliding two groups of actions have emerged. They can be summarized as efforts concerning legitimacy, where challenges to...Show moreWhile examining the efforts of the European Union to halt democratic backsliding two groups of actions have emerged. They can be summarized as efforts concerning legitimacy, where challenges to current Western norms are met, and concerning authority, where power misusage and active degradation to liberal law are met with policy change and increased vigilance. This project compares the two approaches and seeks to determine when backsliding is halted within two case states - Hungary and Romania. Analyzing the past two decades, the thesis project would allow for a greater understanding of whether each approach is worth taking in states in different stages of illiberalism.Show less
In an increasingly globalized world, international organizations remain important to coordinate the need for global cooperation and collective action. In order to give adequate responses to a...Show moreIn an increasingly globalized world, international organizations remain important to coordinate the need for global cooperation and collective action. In order to give adequate responses to a plethora of wicked problems, international organizations need to be given more sovereignty and decision-making powers. This clashes directly with the need of national governments to retain their sovereignty. These clashes can lead to a decrease in legitimacy for the IO and give rise to nationalism, and in the most extreme cases to democratic backsliding. Democracy promoting IOs unintentionally help democratic backsliding in member states when they do not design proper democracy promoting tools and mechanisms. I mix process tracing and discourse analysis to look at the influence of democracy promoting mechanisms of IOs on member states who experience democratic backsliding. I demonstrate my case by looking at the application and results of the conditionality mechanism of the EU on Poland and Hungary. The conditionality mechanism focuses mainly on 1) constitution, 2) rule of law, 3) civil and minority rights, 4) the independence of the judiciary and the media, and 5) the separation of power within government. Of these, I focus on the effects of the conditionality mechanism on 4) the independence of the judiciary and the media. I find that the conditionality mechanism mainly influenced changes in the independence of the judiciary. This influence was also seen back in the resilience and recovery proposals from Hungary and Poland, where both countries pledged to pass legislation to increase the independence of the judiciary. Based on this I argue that the amount of democracy promoting mechanisms does not matter, as long as the impact of the mechanism is strong enough for democracy promotionShow less
In the last decade, several Eastern members of the European Union (EU) have regressed in their democratic quality. This ‘democratic backsliding’ has most notably occurred in Hungary where the...Show moreIn the last decade, several Eastern members of the European Union (EU) have regressed in their democratic quality. This ‘democratic backsliding’ has most notably occurred in Hungary where the populist government led by Viktor Orbán continues to infringe upon the liberal democratic values championed by the EU. As the Hungarian populist government employs a Eurosceptic narrative, its continued success in combination with the rather pro-EU population is puzzling. Applying a multidimensional framework of EU attitudes, this study conducts a quantitative analysis of public opinion to explain the aforementioned puzzle and gauge the impact Euroscepticism has on the continued success of populism. It is argued that the government uses the underlying dimensions of EU attitudes to varying extent to mobilise public support. The binary regression’s results show that popular EU attitudes are not a definitive predictor for populist support. Nonetheless, the findings illustrate that the continued success of the Hungarian government is attributable to nationalist sentiments in the unique post-communist context.Show less
