On the rise of illiberalism in Europe: what accounts for the variations in the de-liberalization process

It looks increasingly obvious that the last two decades are a period of marked political changes. There is extensive empirical evidence in favor of the (re)making of many democracies across Europe and worldwide. The common feature in this process is the diffusion of an illiberal critique of liberal democracy, with progressive impact on the rule of law, the mechanisms of checks and balances, and guaranteed fundamental rights. This paper is an attempt to map the stages of the development of illiberal democracy by identifying first the main explicanda the existing literature provided in relation to the development of illiberal democracy in Europe (the social, the economic and the political arenas) and then the thresholds of de-liberalization. Building on the four institutional thresholds identified by Rokkan in the process of democracy building, this paper argues it is important to look at the way in which illiberal values penetrate in the liberal democratic setting. More specifically, it argues that it is possible to identify a reversal sequence of thresholds that starts from a re-legitimation threshold, a re-design of the incorporation one, a re-organization of the threshold of representation and finally with a challenge of the parliamentary system. In brief, the paper aims to develop a unified scheme of explanations that account for the variation in states of de-liberalization across post-communism (with potential variations in the timing, the speed and the scope of the process under scrutiny).