Complying with Press Freedom: A Comparative Study of Central and Eastern, and Southern Europe

For the last decade, the number of people benefitting from a free media environment has profoundly declined on a global scale. In a European context however, press freedom is rarely considered a salient issue, neither in public nor in academic debates. Yet, further research reveals that the situation is not as unproblematic as generally perceived. On the contrary, the uniform and smooth application of the right to press freedom by EU member states is far from being accomplished. Especially Central Eastern and Southern European countries (CESECs) face considerable challenges in compliance with press freedom. However, not all CESECs can be labelled non-compliant – Estonia and Portugal are among the top-ten EU members – indicating that there are other explanatory variables than geographical location or time of accession. Even more concerning is the continuing deterioration of press freedom performances in the EU. A majority of CESECs discloses poorer results every year. The existing literature on press freedom however has hitherto not unambiguously clarified which conditions determine the degree of compliance with press freedom in the EU. The article at hand therefore addresses this theoretical deficiency and examines the determinants explaining both the distinctions across the EU and the concerning development over time. Henceforth, this paper aims at a comparative research design. More precisely, a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), applying amongst others the database provided by Freedom House, will be conducted in order to find the necessary and sufficient conditions for CESECs’ compliance with press freedom. Furthermore and in order to go beyond the mere descriptive results offered by QCA, an additional analysis will scrutinize the causal relations so far concealed. By conducting process tracing in a few carefully selected cases, the article will provide a more substantiated conclusion and thereby contribute to academic research on compliance, press freedom,and democratisation in Europe.