External Pressure and Democratic Contestation in the European Union

Abstract

This panel examines how external pressures and information dynamics reshape democratic contestation across the European Union, moving from disinformation supply through electoral demand to media mediation. The three papers share a concern with how supranational disputes, adversarial interference and exceptional democratic measures are interpreted within national contexts, and together they trace a sequence from narrative production to electoral effect to public legitimation. The first paper analyses Russia's foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) during the 2024 European elections, arguing that cross-national diversity in disinformation masks a single villain schema (the EU, or national governments cast as Brussels' proxy) applied through victim templates calibrated to local anxieties and identities across France, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The second paper offers the first individual-level demand-side test of EU conditionality's electoral effects, showing through a 2023 Polish exit poll that voters who prioritised unblocking suspended EU funds sorted overwhelmingly towards compliance-committed parties rather than rallying behind the incumbent. The third paper examines media framing of Romania's 2024 presidential election annulment, identifying four competing frames that simultaneously justified extraordinary democratic safeguards and eroded institutional trust.

Title	Details
FIMI narratives in the 2024 European elections’ campaign	View Paper Details
Money Talks at the Polling Station: EU-Funds Conditionality and the 2023 Polish Election	View Paper Details
Defending or Undermining Democracy? Media Framings of Romania’s 2024 Election Annulment	View Paper Details