Party views on democratic backsliding and differentiated integration

Bellamy, Richard, Kröger, Sandra and Lorimer, Marta ORCID: 0000-0002-9214-3898 (2023) Party views on democratic backsliding and differentiated integration. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 37 (2). 563 - 583.

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Abstract

Both political parties and differentiated integration (DI) play an ambivalent role in regard to democratic backsliding. Parties’ positioning towards democratic backsliding has not always been straightforward, and DI has been seen as facilitating it. We analyse whether party actors view democratic backsliding as a problematic issue for the EU, if they think DI facilitates it, and how they consider the EU should respond to it. Drawing on thirty-five interviews and a survey of forty-two party actors in seven member states, we show that many do view backsliding as problematic. Moreover, around half worried that DI could facilitate backsliding, though others did not link the two. Finally, almost all considered it legitimate for the EU to address democratic backsliding. Although centre-of-left actors are most likely to worry about democratic backsliding and favour EU intervention, actors across the political spectrum are sceptical about accepting DI in matters pertaining to Article 2.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/eep
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Authors
Divisions:	European Institute
Subjects:	J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory
Date Deposited:	07 Apr 2022 12:24
Last Modified:	23 Apr 2024 09:49
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/114618

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