The multi-level politics of countering democratic backsliding: state of the art and new research directions

Blauberger, Michael, Naurin, Daniel, Sedelmeier, Ulrich ORCID: 0000-0001-6963-4296 and Wunsch, Natasha (2024) The multi-level politics of countering democratic backsliding: state of the art and new research directions. Journal of European Public Policy. ISSN 1350-1763

Text (final pre-proof version Blauberger_et_al_JEPP SI intro) - Accepted Version Repository staff only until 1 May 2026. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (189kB)

• Scopus publication

Abstract

After more than a decade of inaction or, at best, using soft instruments, the EU has become more assertive against democratic backsliding in member states. This special issue adopts a multi-level perspective to tackle the new research avenues that arise from this change in EU policy. Its contributions investigate two broad questions: first, the causes of this policy change, and second, its potential domestic impact in the backsliding countries. Focused on the EU level, a first set of articles revisits and refines existing accounts of EU inaction in order to explain the EU’s recent turn towards greater assertiveness. A second set of contributions concentrates mainly on the domestic level to explore the potential impact of the EU’s efforts to counter democratic backsliding in the member states that are the targets of EU actions. This introduction identifies the main themes of this new research agenda, provides an overview of the individual contributions to the special issue and their main insights, and sketches avenues for further research on countering democratic backsliding in the EU.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General)
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2024 15:24
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2024 18:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126193

Actions (login required)

View Item