Anchoring democracy from above? The European Union and democratic backsliding in Hungary and Romania after accession

Sedelmeier, Ulrich ORCID: 0000-0001-6963-4296 (2014) Anchoring democracy from above? The European Union and democratic backsliding in Hungary and Romania after accession. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52 (1). 105 - 121. ISSN 0021-9886

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Abstract

This article analyzes the European Union's reactions to breaches of liberal democratic practices in Hungary and Romania during 2012-13 in order to assess its capacity to lock in democracy in the Member States. The article finds that a combination of partisan politics and weak normative consensus thwarted the EU's ability to use the sanctioning mechanism of Article 7. The effectiveness of alternative instruments that EU institutions used - social pressure, infringement procedures and issue linkage - varied across issues and countries. In Hungary, changes to illiberal practices generally remained limited, but differences in the EU's material leverage explain cross-issue variation. The EU's relative success in Romania suggests that it is not necessarily powerless against democratic backsliding. It might require a demanding constellation of favourable conditions for both social and material pressure, but there are grounds for a more optimistic interpretation that material leverage might be unnecessary if the conditions for social pressure are favourable.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14685965
Additional Information:	© 2015 The Author
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) J Political Science > JZ International relations
Date Deposited:	06 Jan 2014 11:34
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 01:27
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/55127

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