From ‘democratic backsliding’ to ‘re-democratizing’: understanding how East European countries get back on a liberal democratic course

Abstract

The academic literature on post-communist Europe has long been preoccupied with democratic backsliding, illiberal governance, and the rise of national populism. Yet the regional picture is neither uniform nor unidirectional. Across Central and Southeast Europe, illiberal incumbents have sometimes been displaced through elections, democratic norms have been contested and defended, and governments have actively sought to reverse the legacies of state capture. This panel addresses a neglected but increasingly urgent question: under what conditions does re-democratization become possible, and how should the concept itself be understood? The three papers approach this question from complementary angles. The first examines the discursive contest at the heart of Polish politics, exploring how PiS and Civic Coalition have deployed mirrored but distinct narratives of de- and re-democratization, and how these have resonated across a polarized electorate with divergent understandings of what democracy means and requires. The second takes a comparative configurational approach, applying Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to twenty-one elections across Central and Southeast Europe to identify the combinations of civic mobilization and opposition coordination that enable the electoral displacement of illiberal incumbents. The third steps back to interrogate re-democratization as an analytical concept, examining the structural enablers and spoilers of democratic recovery, the enduring weight of post-1989 transitional legacies, and the lessons that successful cases may hold for states such as Hungary and the Western Balkans that remain locked into authoritarian trajectories. Together, the papers advance a more theoretically grounded and empirically diverse account of democratic resilience and recovery in the region.

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