Democratic Backsliding in the EU: Causes and Impact

Abstract

This Panel provides a critical overview and advances the discussion on one of the most pressing challenges of the contemporary European Union—democratic backsliding, a set of political changes resulting in the departure from the standards of democracy developed by political theory and mirrored in the criteria used by the EU. The Papers provide new conceptual and empirical perspectives on the definition of backsliding, the triggers behind it in several EU Member States, as well as the consequences of the phenomenon for democracy and governance in the EU. Using several research methods, their research designs range from comparative case studies (with an emphasis on Hungary, Poland and, to a lesser extent, Romania) to medium-N analyses of Central and Eastern European and Western Balkan countries.