Does ideology trump geography? EU responses to democratic backsliding in member states

The rise of democratic backsliding among several member states has caused growing concern over the European Union’s (EU) ability to address deteriorations in democratic quality once a country has successfully completed its accession process. Earlier studies focused on partisanship and a combination of MEPs’ ideological preferences and strategic interests to explain their voting behaviour in roll-call votes (Meijers & van der Veer 2019; Herman et al. 2021). Our study investigates how geographic cleavages, specifically the East-West divide in Europe, as well as populist contestation of EU interferences in domestic matters affect MEPs’ responses to backsliding trends. We conduct our empirical analysis on the basis of 24 roll-call votes relating to the quality of democracy held in the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019. Our findings suggest that originating from a Central and Eastern European (CEE) member state makes MEPs less likely to vote for EU resolutions condemning rule of law violations, even when controlling for party group affiliation, ideological orientation, vote saliency, and vote type. Still, specific ideological orientations show considerably stronger effects, most notably when it comes to membership in the populist radical right party family and holding Eurosceptic views. Our results speak to ongoing debates on the EU’s response to democratic backsliding in its midst and signal the consolidation of an East-West cleavage as an important political divide in Europe.